Page 306 of Caelum

From wherever the light touched, there was a cry of pain that was swiftly cut off.

“Shit,” Dre whispered. “The light’s killing them.”

Unease settled inside me, making my stomach churn. “I guess the clue wasn’t wrong. After that wish, we’ll be safe.”

The eight promises of death that, ironically enough, came in the form of light, whirled through the cave like a tornado intent on ripping its way through the countryside. It was so fast, so horrifically violent that the wave of screams blurred into one endless noise.

“How many are even there?” Eve cried out, only audible only because I was close to her, with her horror at what was happening evident. Ghouls weren’t human though. They didn’t deserve a humane way to die.

“Thousands,” Samuel screamed over the roaring noise tearing through the underground city. “Has to be.”

The light’s path, gleaming through the stone walls as it was, showed us just how intricate the cave system was here, meaning either we were accessing an underground cave network that hadn’t been explored before, or this was part of Derinkuyu that had been held off from the public—perhaps thanks to a high-ranking Ghoul’s interference.

Still, the complexity of the network was bewildering, and the noise was enough to make that marvel a nightmare. The loss of silence blurred into an endlessness that made my ears weep with the need for the screams to die, and after a solid fifteen minutes of listening to this torture, when the screams perished, it had me closing my eyes and whispering thanks because I seriously wasn’t sure if I could deal with much more of that.

With the quiet came the return of the sun. It appeared from behind its thick shroud of clouds. Though it was back, my eyes didn’t ache as theynormally would. The light I’d just witnessed tearing its way through the cave had been bright enough to make me feel as though it were still midday.

“They’re all gone?”

“Most of them, I reckon,” Samuel stated grimly. “Apart from Erlik. The fact we have two more wishes tells me he’s alive, but why didn’t the light reach him?”

“Maybe he’s in a part it couldn’t get to?” Eve suggested, but I heard the shakiness in her voice. Who could blame her for being scared? I was too, but not for myself—for her and for my Pack.

We were about to head into war with no one at our back and an Original Ghoul at our front.

Which part of that boded well?

“We need to get moving,” Reed said uneasily. “The light penetrated through there.” He pointed to a kind of rocky terrain on ground level, which, from where we were standing, would have been invisible without the guidance from our first wish.

We were dressed for the desert in sand-colored combats Nicholas had provided for us. Whatever Eve had told him, he’d given us the best gear he’d handed out only to the top Enforcers. There was an honor in that as well as trepidation. After all, we weren’t top Enforcers. Though it had been in our future, it took time and battles to reach that point.

We still weren’t old enough to fucking graduate, yet here we were with the best kit.

Releasing a breath, I directed, “I’ll take point. Keep Eve between us. Watch out for the ground shifting, Eve. It might look stable, but that doesn’t mean it is.”

She shook her head. “The danger isn’t out here but in there.”

Because she wasn’t wrong, I didn’t bother arguing. Just nodded at her and headed over to a thin track of land connecting the hill we were standing on with the higher one beside it. It was a steep trail, bogged down with weeds, some dead and some alive, which had been trampled at some point.

“This is their access point,” I mused then shouted the words back to my Pack.

“They use this as their base, that’s for sure,” Eren observed grimly from behind me.

It was a wonder there was anyone left in Derinkuyu city considering how many Ghouls the light from our wish had just blasted through…

Between the people of Derinkuyu and the tourists who gathered here for the attraction of the underground city, the numbers told me that high-ranking Ghouls lived here. Ones who could control their urges, who were grounded in reason enough to know that you didn’t shit where you ate.

Literally.

As we approached the other hill, the path came to a natural end, and I saw the scorch mark on the face of the cliff. Had I not seen that, it would have been impossible to see the slight opening, but because it was there, I sucked in a breath then peeped inside.

Half of the opening was in the light and the other in the dark, making it hard to catch my bearings, but the second I did, I saw the steps. And the piles of ash.

There’d been some Ghouls heading out, undoubtedly to investigate the noise from our vehicles.

Pulling back, I called out, “This way.”

Stepping inside the cool air of the cave was a delight after that short journey in the heat of the midday sun. When we were all inside, Samuel said, “Time for the second wish. We have no idea where we’re going.”

---