The Firebird by Nerine Dorman

Author:Nerine Dorman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: nature, spirits, fantasy, magic, cults, demons, siblings, novella, possession, rivalry
Publisher: Nerine Dorman

CHAPTER SEVEN

Revelations

Last chance to change my mind: I can still attempt to back out now though my shaved head will raise suspicions difficult to wriggle out of. This deep beneath the ground, at the very roots of the Place of Fennar, the ground is moist, the slimy grit treacherous as I halt on the last step. By now I should have been used to the stench, but I swallow back bile, grateful I’ve not eaten. There is nothing to bring up, despite my stomach’s contortions suggesting otherwise. The darkness here by the cells is so complete I can feel it sliding down my throat. Starbursts of colour bloom before me as my eyes struggle to adjust to the light that simply is not there.

Apart from the steady drip of moisture and my own ragged breathing, I can’t hear a thing. My toes curl around the edge of the step of their own volition and the sudden proliferation of doubt urges me to retrace my route and return to my pallet where I can wait until dawn to let the inevitable take its course.

“Ailas?” My voice cracks on the second syllable.

Something stirs at the other end of the row, perhaps a restless thrashing of limbs.

Go back, there is still time.

I take that fateful step, and it’s the beginning of the fall.

I crouch, feel in the dark until I encounter a wrist flung out between the bars. Clammy fingers twitch around my own.

“Unia...you...came.”

Tears slash down my cheeks, and my heart constricts. “I’m so sorry.”

For everything.

“I knew...you’d...come.”

“I brought you a philtre,” I say. “Do you think you can sit up and drink?”

The vile concoction will lend him false strength for a few hours, and hopefully enough for me to get him walking out of here.

I rise so I can unlock the gate as another tremor strikes, and just as fast I crouch while the earth shakes and stone grinds upon stone. Won’t it be a cosmic joke that I’ve come this far only to be crushed in a collapse?

“I can’t see,” Ailas says.

“The light’s gone out.”

“And there—” He coughs and coughs.

I get the mechanism open at the second try and swing open the gate. My brother is stick-thin and delicate in my arms. So easy to crush him, break him. How he’s managed to hold up until now only the vyra-demons know.

“You need to get a philtre into you,” I whisper.

He stinks of rotten blood, piss and worse, but beneath that veneer of horror, he’s still my brother.

Ailas nods and I prop him up against the wall while I reach into my pouch for the flasks. I unstop the first then find his lips. His drinking is feeble, and I’m not sure how much of the mixture he swallows and how much trickles down his chin.

His reaction is instant, and he gags, doubles over.

“Don’t bring it up,” I caution, holding him to me.

“Gods, that stuff is vile. I forget how.”

He’s already sounding stronger.

“Another one.”

“Oh gods.”

“Please, brother mine.”

He laughs. “You haven’t called me that in years.

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