“Time to concede, little girl,” he huffed. “Beating you up is no fun.”
I couldn’t just feel the drumming anymore. I could hear it. It was a soft roll of thunder in the distance, growing ever closer. The patter of armies breaching crests in the distance. It was the scent of turned earth and sulphur. It swelled through my body and grew loud in my ears, and when I pulled my hands from my face, I could feel it burning from my eyes. Christian grinned, flashing a full, wide smile. He suddenly looked younger, closer to my own age. I grabbed his wrists in both of my hands, twisting his arms to the side. His torso followed, and I could feel the strain of the muscles in his forearms as he tried to fight against my hold. Those muscles felt like stretchy pieces of toffee. If I pulled them enough, they would tear.
Christian crashed to the side, his smile making way for a wince, and then suddenly I was atop him, turning my attention inward, looking for other weaknesses. I could feel one of the bones shielding his heart, and the tiny little fissure that cracked through it, where he had been hit too many times before. I applied a little bit of pressure, my focus narrowing until nothing existed but the roar of my energy and that tiny little fissure.
Someone roared in pain, and then I was flying through the air. I blinked, some of the rage dying from my eyes as a familiar presence blanketed me. Calder was holding me again, a single arm supporting my weight, his other hand on my face, directing it to his. When our eyes met, the rage in me quieted. His skin was warm, his eyes cold, a spark of surprise beneath the surface of the calm blue.
He released my jaw and I glanced around, noting all the shocked faces of the Sentinels, and Christian … who was still on the ground, his face twisted in pain, his hand to his chest. I flicked my eyes back to Calder.
What happened?
“You weren’t even touching him,” Calder muttered so softly that only I could hear, before setting me back on my feet. “You’ll forgive me for interfering,” he said, much louder this time, his eyes on Christian. “It was for your own good.”
Christian nodded, mustering a pained smile. “Yeah, I concede this one. But … mind telling me why it feels like my rib just cracked?”
“You should probably go and visit an infirmary” was Calder’s only reply, his hand covering mine as he pulled me toward the gate.
The other Sentinels stepped out of our way, their eyes following us as we approached the edge of the mountain. The Keep rested on a giant platform of opalsten—a pearly white stone fused to petrified rock. It was as though the mountain itself had once been a mine of opalsten, but the precious rock had been chipped away from beneath, hollowing out the front of the mountain. The gigantic carving of the driftwood woman rose up from the waves, her rock edges adorned in sea foam. Her arms arched up above her head to hold onto the great big platform, her crown circling the very front of it in a protective clasp.
The cobbled path continued over to the platform, though the cobblestones became larger, arranged in circular patterns. Gardens began to edge the pathway, set into stone basins filled with soil deep enough to grow trees almost as large as those in the wild forests or cultivated orchards huddled along the mountain. We climbed a few more steps and found ourselves very suddenly in the antechamber of the Keep, the branches of the nearest trees grinding against the outside walls.
The chamber was narrow, but with a towering ceiling that dangled a driftwood chandelier above us, the lights flickering in the wind. The door into the receiving room was open but guarded by another two Sentinels boasting the King’s emblem. They didn’t need to ask us who we were or what our business was.
My now-ripped dress did nothing to hide the golden wings etched along my neck, and Calder had tossed one shoulder of his cape back, the tips of the winged brand rippling out over his chest as he walked.
“Tempest.” The Sentinel on the left nodded at me, while the one on the right greeted Calder. “Captain.”
We nodded back, passing through them into the room beyond, which was decorated in much the same way as the King’s Court, which I had visited once before. The opalsten underfoot had been dug up, filed into massive tiles, brushed with gold leaf and then laid back down again. There was a clear, hard material laid over the top, almost like glass. The walls were panelled, the edging carved meticulously and brushed with gold. Tapestries hung in each of the panelled sections—faded scenes of landscapes that were unrecognisable to me. Another driftwood chandelier dropped from the carved, gilded ceiling, which seemed to be an artwork in itself.
“Captain. Tempest,” a soft voice greeted, drawing our attention to a steward attendant who had slipped into the room. She bowed her head. “I apologise. Only one room has been prepared.”
“Sleep is unlikely tonight,” Calder replied, as the woman bowed her head even lower, colour high in her cheeks. Was she afraid of us, or of letting Calder into the castle?
“Please, follow me.” She turned quickly on her heel, rushing off toward the end of the room.
We followed, keeping our thoughts to ourselves until—a maze of turns, walkways and staircases later—she had deposited us inside a room. It looked like the other rooms I had frequented in the Keep, with a sitting room and washroom both attached to the bedroom.
“The opening night of the festival will begin at sundown,” she informed us after we had run through a quick inspection of the rooms. “The King will send someone to collect you.”
She rushed out of the room before we could question her further. The door closing and a trembling key turned inside the lock. I scoffed, staring at the door.
“He knows how easily we can get out. Why bother terrifying the attendants by forcing them to lock us in?”
Calder didn’t answer. He stood at one of the high windows, his eyes narrowed on the horizon.
“It’s not right,” he muttered. “For days it’s been like this. No storm, no snow. No plague. Those who were already sick simply died off, and that was that. It’s like the Darkness just … disappeared.”
“The calm before the storm?” I guessed, joining him at the window.
We stared down at the crashing waves of the Sea of Storms, unease building between us.
“I’m going to find out what I can about this festival,” he decided, striding away from the window. “Knowing those five, it isn’t what it seems. The sooner we figure out their real objective here, the better.”
“I’ll see what I can find out as well,” I agreed. “I think I have an idea.”
He paused, looking back at me, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t disappear again,” he warned me. “I don’t care who I have to tear through to get to you.”
He grabbed a candlestick as he approached the door, and swung it into the door handle, breaking it clean off, and the lock with it, leaving a small square of splintered wood missing as he tossed the candlestick to the side and left the room. I twisted my ring, thinking of the room I had woken up in.
“The Obelisk.”
I dropped onto the worn rug of the stormstone room, brushing dirt from my shoulders. I couldn’t help but do a quick sweep of the space, needing to reassure myself that nobody laid in wait for me before I moved to the shelf of my belongings. I took down the little maroon book, tracing the faded indentation of the title with the pad of my finger.