War of the Mystics (Riders of Dark Dragons Book 5) by C.K. Rieke

Author:C.K. Rieke [Rieke, C.K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crimson Cro Publishing
Published: 2023-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

Part IV

Serpentine of Frost

Chapter Twenty-Five

The crypt was shrouded in darkness. His boots splashed through the stagnant water that pooled from the rains during the battle. The air was old and musty in his nostrils. Torches echoed as they rumbled and crackled, hung along both sides of the Hall of Divinity with a high-arching ceiling of blocks of stone older than most things he’d seen in his short life.

Statues of proud kings and queens, and probably princes whose lives were cut too short were arranged on both sides of the hall, twelve feet apart, in a hall that was only just that wide. A rat jumped over his foot; he felt its thick tail knock into his shin. Adler grabbed his arm and squeezed.

“I hate the underbellies of cities,” he said, seeming to want to jump into Stone’s arms.

“Me too,” Stone replied. The hall reminded him of far too many times they’d been under cities, in very different circumstances. For a fleeting moment, he worried it was all a trick to try to throw them in some cell where they’d be forgotten, and the key tossed away in the slime of the hall’s corners.

It reminded him of the catacombs of Verren, where they first met with the Mages of the Seliax to repair Marilyn.

“Eesh,” Ceres squirmed in the cold as she rubbed her bare arms. “Reminds me of Atlius, gettin’ Marilyn out of that cell.” It was as if their minds were bound by disdain for such places.

A glowing haze burned up ahead, over the heads of the ones that walked before them. A burning silhouette like a powerful sunset. The corridor opened up to a much larger hall with dozens of people already in it. The floors had been swept away dry, and fresh banners hung straight from the ceiling—not an inkling of wind had ever found its way to this place.

It had been hours since they’d briefly met with the seven, and there they were—collected within themselves in the far corner of the room. Margaret bent her elbow to give a short wave. Stone waved back.

In the Hall of Divinity, with many more torches illuminating the walls and ceiling, Stone saw that it was different than any other place he’d seen under a city. It indeed felt divine, as if God had helped sculpt the figures into the rock on the ceiling. It was like a scene out of a painting, with cherubs with cute bottoms feeding grapes to bare-chested maidens and wild-eyed monsters with tridents cutting into other figures. It was something he’d like to lay on his back and admire with a bottle of dry wine—if the circumstances were far different.

At the center back of the chamber lay the queen’s coffin, where Ghost still wept. It hurt him to see the fairy so devastated by the loss, for he too knew the pain it took. Every death of someone you loved like that took a piece from you—something you’d never get back. A living, breathing, smiling, laughing friend could have their light extinguished in an instant—and all that was left was the memories.

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