Her Cinder Throne (Completed)

Chapter 65

The path to where the Sparkstone was hidden was long and sinuous. Cole almost gave up after an hour of splinters from hastily built ladders and the extinguishing of their torch in a rough breeze. For the past ten minutes they'd been walking in utter darkness that pressed in on them from all sides like a physical force. Cole only knew where Tanwyn was from his palm pressed into hers and his fingers squeezing her hand tight. He trailed his other hand across the walls of the tunnel and lead them further into the bowels of the mountains.

Cole had been in blacked-out mines before, but this felt different. Not only was she not focused on work or getting out, she was heading even deeper into the darkness. And that same sense of foreboding grew with each step they took. Though she'd never been sent to the gallows, she imagined this was what it felt like to walk up the steps and stare at the looped rope. A hand in your own miserable fate.

Tanwyn suddenly stopped, sending Cole smashing into his back. She hissed and rubbed her nose. "What are you doing?" she asked, but instantly regretted it. The sound of her voice in the stagnant black was as unnatural as screaming in a holy place. It felt wrong to the very nature of its own being.

"I felt something," Tanwyn whispered back. His grip tightened around her hand.

"Something monster-like?" Cole said in a hushed voice. She pulled nearer Tanwyn, pressing against his side as she looked around her. It was a useless task in the dark, but she still felt the need to scan for danger.

Tanwyn took a moment to reply. "I don't know. It didn't feel... I don't know." She felt him stiffen as he braced himself. "Let's just keep going."

They began to walk again into the depths, Cole this time jammed up against Tanwyn in some false hope that if she was close to him that she wouldn't feel the clammy hands or wet breath that she imagined she felt running along her back and neck.

"Tanwyn," she whispered as suddenly the tunnel seemed sucked completely dry of sound. She felt him press her hand and pull her to his front, her back to the wall, before placing himself in front of her.

A moment before, Cole might have said the tunnels were eerily quiet. Used to the bustle of the castle, the roar of the city, and the clammer of her old mine, this place felt as if it had been frozen in time. And yet, now she realized that the tunnels had been noisey in comparison to this. She had been able to hear her footsteps and water dripping. The gentle whistle of a breeze and their own breathing. Yet now, all of that was gone. It was dead silence. A muffled physical block, as if they had ceased to exist. Only their voices met their ears, and that somehow felt as if they were screaming even as they whispered.

"Something's coming," Tanwyn whispered.

He'd barely finished his sentence when a huge gust of wind flew up from the tunnel and slammed into them. It was not from the end of the tunnel they had come from, but the end of the tunnel they had not yet walked through. This was a wind coming from an impossible place.

Cole cringed back, digging in her pack for the dagger. She had tossed it in, not thinking about the need to draw it quickly later on, and her hand instead met dried jerky and bandages.

Eths ma graewn e piietg.

Cole paused her digging and looked up. The word... if they were even words to begin with, floating in on the wind, like the hissing of a snake. The voice was all exhalations and barely audible, yet it wrapped around Cole as tightly as if it had been screamed in her face.

"What was that?" she asked. But Tanwyn didn't answer.

Things from above. More things from above.

This Cole understood. She stiffened and instinctively reached out to grab the back of Tanwyn's arm. She held on tight, as if hoping to remind herself that there was real in the world, and the voice could not possibly be part of that.

They come down to harrrrm us. Hurt ussss. Take our hearts for their own and our brother for their pet. Try to claim our Masssster.

The voice intensified, as if multiple voices were talking at once, in perfect unison.

We slaughter theeeeem. Drink their blood and crunch their bones. Tell me, above things, why do you not fear ussss still?

Cole licked her lips, waiting for the voices to say more, but they held silent. Waiting for an answer to their question. But Cole felt strange talking to the air, especially since she didn't know what Thijs had uncovered or done in these mines.

"We don't fear you because we are part of you," Tanwyn said, his voice making Cole startle.

'Part of us' it says. Our Master would notttttt have above things as its childreeeeen.

"We are not from the same above as the ones who are trying to steal your master," Tanwyn said. "We come from the Eldritch fields where magic was born. Our wings are filled with your master's ancestors."

Wingsssss. You are an above thing. We see no wingsssss.

"Do you need to? Ask your master if it knows the bloodline of the ancient Eldritch rulers. Does it show no reverence for the descendant of Arwel, Cadoc, and Nesta?"

It speaks of our Ancient Ones. The voices seemed hesitant, confused, and just a slight bit angry. It was that edge of frustration in their voices that made Cole's blood go cold. Even if it was only a taste of anger, it felt like more than enough to make her want to run. 

"I have with me the daughter of that bloodline. The last of the Ancient One's heirs. She seeks the help of your Master, as her magic has been extinguished through no fault of her own."

Our Master does not believe you. Why should it belieeeeeve one of the above things. You dig for our Master, burning it with fire and light, trying toooo take it to use for your own greeeeed. You kill our brotherrrrrrssss.

Tanwyn sighed in frustration. "I already told you! We're not related to those people. Surely you must have sensed that, or you would have attacked us immediately. But you talked to us and are sparing us still. You must sense the ancient magic in her blood."

The voices were silent for a moment, but it did not feel like a silence born of thought and contemplation. Instead, it sounded like the silence of someone who was preoccupied with something else. It was a weighty silence that bore with it the promise of a return to the conversation all too soon. For a moment, Cole wondered if they should take the chance and run back to the surface. But as soon as she thought this, she knew it was impossible. Thijs' men would be waiting for them should they try to return.