Page 43 of House of Gilded Nightmares

It is because they are free.

Chapter Sixteen

“We’re nearing the end of the tunnels,” Zyren announces.

I blink, shaking my head as if waking from a deep slumber. It has to have been at least another day since we left the forest of glowing moths. We’ve been walking for so long in the darkness, nothing but Zyren’s magic to guide us, that it seems I’ve forgotten what the world above could even be like. Time passes differently beneath the earth, of that I am sure. I’ve found myself wondering if we’ll climb to the surface again, only to find that it’s all passed us by, Valaron and Aureon and all the realms nothing but a wasteland.

“At least this section of them,” he adds, breaking through my thoughts. “We’ll have to travel above ground shortly, then another short stretch in another set of caves brings us nearly to Selaye’s doorstep.”

My heart plummets. I’m not sure if I can go beneath the mountain again after we surface and I feel the warmth of the sun again.

Zyren sees my face, and he must read my expression because he goes silent for several moments. “All of this will be over soon, Sarielle. Our long road will end, and you will be crowned queen.”

I know his words are meant to comfort me, but they do not. I want nothing more than to keep traveling past Selaye and never look back.

The tunnel bends sharply ahead, and as we approach it, a strange glow emanates around the corner. Zyren continues without slowing, and I follow him down the path. When we make the turn, I stop dead in my tracks, the breath leaving my lungs. The view beyond is stunning.

It’s a cave made entirely of luminous amethyst crystals. Walls and ceiling are both covered in pale purple gems. Huge shards of it, jutting into the path from either side, letting off a light of their own such that Zyren can finally let his go out. There’s a hum in the air as if they are singing to each other, or maybe to us.

I take several steps forward, turning in a circle, eyes wide. “This is incredible,” I whisper.

But Zyren doesn’t seem as enthralled as I am. He’s staring at something ahead, jaw tight. I follow his gaze, seeing something dark ripple over the surface of the crystals. It takes me several moments to realize what it is because the image is fractured by the gems. It shifts, sometimes stretching across a wide section of the wall of the cave, other times narrowing to one prismatic facet of one of the shards of crystal.

It’s Zyren’s memory of the boy in the boat. I know what’s coming because I’ve been in his dreams. My heart climbs into my throat as I watch helplessly. And then it happens: the nightmare bursts up from the surface of the lake, swallowing the boat whole. Zyren flinches as he watches, as do I. I step forward to grab his hand, to comfort him, but something on the opposite wall of the cave pulls my attention.

This time it’s one of my memories. And it’s not so long ago, not even a full two weeks. The night of the ceremony, when I am to perform the joining ritual with the High Priest. I watch myself walking slowly through the cathedral wearing my white dress, surrounded by the other priestesses. I see myself from far away as if I am an observer on the outskirts of the room. My head is tipped down; I am quiet. A lamb going to slaughter. Every line of my body sighs with resignation and defeat. Watching myself, I am filled with the darkest wave of shame and regret.

On the other side of the cave, another set of images begins to reflect on the surface of the crystals. This memory is also recent, even more recent. It’s Zyren and me, standing atop the mountain peak with the moon shining down on us. But somehow, as I watch it start to unfold, I know it’s not my memory…

Zyren takes my hand, startling me from my reverie. He tugs me along, moving us toward the exit of the cave. Up ahead, I see a set of ascending stone steps and a shimmer of something that might be moonlight. The warmth of Zyren’s fingers pulses against my wrist, and I focus on that as we climb out of the cave. I am not wrong about the moonlight. We climb no more than two dozen steps when, to my great relief, we step out from beneath the earth into the world once again.

I suck in several deep lungfuls of the night air, leaning forward, hands resting on my thighs. I feel dizzy and lightheaded. Part of me thought we’d never make it out of those caves. I didn’t know we’d been slowly making our way to the surface again. Perhaps if I’d known how close we were, I would have felt less desperate, less trapped.

My head finally begins to clear. “What was that place?” I gasp. “Why was it showing us memories from the past?”

Zyren is silent for several long moments. He’s facing away from me, staring up at the sky, where the moon hangs low over a grove of pine trees in the valley we now stand in.

“That,” he finally says, “is the Cave of Regret.”

His words wash over me, and a tingle of realization moves up my spine. “I saw the night of the joining ritual,” I say softly. “I didn’t fight back. Of all the times in my life I rebelled, when it mattered most, I stayed silent.”

Zyren turns slightly, his eyes grazing over me like silver flame.

“If I’d done something—refused, run away, anything—I wouldn’t be here now.” A shiver moves over me. “I wouldn’t be forced to marry someone I’ve never met.”

The words come out of me unbidden, as if clawing for the surface. What I saw isn’t just a regret. It’s the biggest regret of my life. A moment that tested the fiber of my being, the strength at the core of me, and I failed. Utterly.

And with this realization comes another. My eyes move up to meet Zyren’s. I don’t know when it happened, but I know it haunts him since he dreams of it still. “The boat…the nightmare…it wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?”

He rips his gaze from mine, turning back to look at the sky again. His words drift back to me, hard and blade-edged. “You speak of things you do not understand. He was my brother, and his blood is on my hands. That cannot be undone, not in ten centuries, not in a hundred. Not ever.”

I step softly, closing the several paces between us. Slowly, carefully, I reach out and take his hand. Zyren twitches, his head jerking toward me as if I’ve bitten him. He looks angry for a moment, jaw pulsing, then his fingers squeeze mine, and his eyes soften, sadness flickering across their surface. We stand like that for a moment, the song of the crickets in the trees wrapping around us.

That’s when a reverberating growl rises from the mountain.

Zyren whips around, spinning me behind him as he faces the tunnel we’d just exited. In the dim light of the moon, I see a crevice in the rock a few feet away from where we’d exited the crystal cave. And from that narrow split in the rock, the shadows shiver, and then they move, and something steps from within.

It is a terror from the darkest of nightmares. Fifteen feet tall, walking on spindly, crooked legs that bend backward at an unnatural angle. A narrow torso and long arms ending in huge, clawed hands, each claw the length of two swords. Its head is thin and long, a hard ridge across the top edged in spikes. Two glowing blue eyes narrow as they lock onto me. Another growl rises from its throat, forcing open jaws lined with row upon row of jagged teeth that look like broken metal shards. Smoke curls from its mouth and it lashes its barbed tail around its back legs.

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