Page 26 of A Haven of Brimstone and Darkness

"Try the wall again," Ruen murmurs absently, as he flicks his fingers, drawing the illusionary flame closer. The fire practically leaps towards the stone.

"But you said?—"

Ruen nudges me towards the wall. "You try the right and I'll try the left," he says.

Scowling, I glare at him, but when his hands start to move over the uneven edges of the stones embedded into the wall, I don't bother to demand why the sudden change of heart. He's right, after all; I don't want to believe that Caedmon is really dead.

We spend the next several minutes going over the wall from top to bottom, grabbing on each rock, trying to find an uneven seam in the surface. Nothing. Yet, still the flame dances on over our heads as if calling us idiots for not finding a way in.

"Shit!" I snap, yanking my hand back as one of the rough edges of the stones slices through my palm.

"What—" Ruen stops and grabs ahold of my arm, tugging me closer as the well of blood appears in a perfect line from the bottom of my middle finger until it reaches the side of my hand.

"It's fine," I say, pulling my hand away from him and wiping it on my cloak. "It'll heal in a mom?—"

The flame goes out, interrupting my words, and as darkness descends, my heart leaps into my throat, swallowing the rest of my voice. I'm half convinced that Ruen was simply too startledto keep up the illusion when, after several seconds, there's no telltale sound of booted footsteps coming up the hall to trap us. Instead, though, a series of creaks and groans as if old wood is bending in a massive wind echoes into the confined space. Something hard brushes against the toe of my boot. I take a step back but it hits again.

Over and over again, I move away and Ruen follows me—the dull sound of his own footsteps and breaths my only indication of his whereabouts. The illusory flame flares to life, once more revealing that we've backed far enough away for the wall to come completely out. I gape at the wide space uncovered by the new entrance.

"There must be a spell on the locks," Ruen says.

I turn towards him. "No latch or pulley?"

Blue-purple eyes are locked on the chasm that descends into a staircase beyond. "No," he replies. "It wasn't anything that we pushed or pulled. This kind of spell only unlocks with the offering of blood.”

Chapter 13

Ruen

Kiera is the first to move now that the wall has been revealed and opened. I watch her carefully. She stands at the top of the staircase, facing away from me enough that I can't actually see her expression, but it's no hardship to make out the rigid lines of her body beneath her cloak. Her shoulders are squared, her spine stiff.

I can't help but recall how she'd looked upon the ships that carried us over the black waves to this damnable place. Much like a criminal to the gallows, she'd faced the mountain of brimstone that is Ortus Island with a faraway gaze that seemed to catch everything in its path and, in the same instance, release them all.

"Kiera?"

She doesn't speak, doesn't even acknowledge me as she moves forward. One step down and then another. I follow her into the damp cold place below the hidden doorway. Perhaps it had been too soon to try and convince her that her dreams had been just that—dreams—but I'd hated how desperately she'd clawed at the stones in the wall, practically begging the inanimate object for answers.

My gaze strays upward, to the flame that hovers above the hooded head of the woman striding down the staircase in front of me. That flame had said differently. As I'd told Kiera, my illusions are from the power of a mind. I will all of my illusions to act as they would as if they were real. It was part of the reason I'd stopped her from touching it. Had I allowed it, she would have found herself burned. The flame had acted as if there were more pathways beyond the wall, insistently swaying as if air was catching upon it and trying to drag it through the stones.

Now, I'm wondering if I made the right decision.

Kiera's footsteps increase and mine do as well, until we're both racing, practically leaping down the staircase to get to the bottom. Icy wafts of wind rush up from the bottom, flinging Kiera's hood from her head. The spill of her silver hair flies into my face, the scent of her wafting into my nostrils and invading my every pore.

I reach out and grab her arm. "Slow down." Her head is turned away from me, fixated on something below. "Kiera?"

"We're almost there," she says, sounding as if she's speaking from some far-off, distant place. "It's around the next curve."

I don't know how she knows—it could be due to whatever was shared between her and her spider familiar—but the conviction in her tone has me easing my hold on her arm and releasing her. A moment passes and this time, when she moves down the stairs, it's at a more sedate pace, as if she's forcing herself to go slower than before.

I follow without comment, finding her assertion correct when after the next turn of the stairs, we find ourselves on solid flat ground. Catching sight of a torch on the wall, I send my flame forward to light it. Spiderwebs cling to the handle, but I pat them away, lifting the torch up and twisting it up and down the long corridor we've found.

The place we've found down here appears forgotten in more ways than the cracked and web-coated torch in my hand. The walls are dripping with globs of sticky green and black substances and there are no footprints set into the dust-laden floor to speak of any recent visitors.

"This way." Kiera starts walking, and wielding the only source of light, I follow.

The further we walk, the colder the place becomes until the puffs of my own breath form into clouds of actual fog on each exhalation. Kiera never lapses, her footsteps remain sure and unwavering as she strides down the hallway. I allow myself a brief moment to examine our new surroundings. On one side is nothing but a flat, slightly curved wall, and to the other...

"By the Gods..." Disgust roils in my gut. Rows upon rows of cells made of brimstone. Black bars jutting up from the floors and down from the ceilings to close like teeth over rooms empty of all life. In a few, there are remains of past prisoners, decomposed into little more than dust and bone. Claw marks, blade marks, and even teeth marks line the walls and bars of each cell as if its inhabitants weren't always quite human.

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