“Salt. The original worshippers believed that by blessing the ground with salt, evil could not cross it.”
I wish it was that easy, I thought silently.
Suddenly, Hadrian’s arm extended protectively in front of me and we abruptly stopped walking. I studied his face, but he was listening intently. I heard nothing, except the crackling of inviting flames, and my shivering body yearned to keep moving until I was standing in front of the fire I knew was just around the bend.
Slowly, we moved forward as the walls of the tunnel gave way to a large open room, like a stone antechamber. The space had a very old feel to it and I took note of the stones lining the walls around us; how they appeared rugged and inconsistent in their pattern as roots and vines pressed through the spaces within the aged mortar.
A large fire burned in the middle of the floor, its warmth so enticing that I started to walk toward it, eager to thaw my frozen hands and feet and dry my sodden clothing. But Hadrian still held tightly onto my hand, refusing to come with me, keeping his back pressed against the cold wall. It was only then that I heard the sound of movement coming from the opposite side of the fire.
A small figure crouched on the floor, tracing lines in the dirt. She rocked back and forth, humming quietly to herself, oblivious to the fact that we were watching. My heart lurched as she suddenly stopped, rising to her feet. Her bare arms were covered with long scratches, the same lines she had been tracing on the floor. Her hair was messy and her dress was smudged. My hand covered my mouth as she turned, and then I felt a pull. Hadrian was now stepping out from the shadows, and I had no choice but to follow into the light of the bright orange flames.
The fire went cold.
Sure, I was staring at it, watching the flames curl and extend toward the ceiling of the dank room, but it suddenly felt absent of heat.
My entire body seemed to ice over, and strangely, my thoughts raced back to the unnatural cold I had felt in the closet of Brynn’s house. It was cold there when it shouldn’t be … like here. I felt as if my bones were about to crack, the air was so frigid. Brynn’s face was pale and her eyes were closed.
Surprisingly, she seemed very small to me. She trembled with an anxiety I couldn’t put my finger on. A feeling of absolute terror seized me without warning. There was no sound, no visible reason for me to react this way, only the sight of Brynn stricken by something I wasn’t sure I wanted to understand. My legs felt the instinctive urge to run, but they were frozen.
Last spring Hadrian was the darkest obstacle in my world, but this felt worse.
Hadrian released my clammy hand, leaving me alone with my pounding heart.
“What did you do, Brynn?” Hadrian’s voice pierced the air. Each word felt like a slice, hard and swift.
Brynn turned her head, but either refused or was unable to answer Hadrian. The tension in the room was horrifying.
“You let him in, didn’t you?” Hadrian’s voice bellowed and I felt myself shake against my will, no longer just shivering from the cold.
Brynn’s hand swept quickly to her mouth, covering it. She opened her eyes and stared at Hadrian.
My God, what could she have done?
His knuckles were clenched as he crossed the floor in three strides and grabbed her by her shoulders, making her look like a tiny, limp doll next to his tall, lurking form. Hadrian could be formidable when he chose to and I could hear the stretching and tearing as his dark wings released themselves from his flesh, eager to expand.
“A bargain?” Hadrian asked, his dark eyes frantically searching hers, yet she still didn’t respond. “What did you offer, Brynn? Tell me!”
A high keening was beginning to bounce off the walls, and my arms answered the new sound with gooseflesh. I realized the sound was coming from Brynn. She was falling apart, shaking, whimpering. Her eyes bulged with irrational fear, but she wasn’t focused on Hadrian. She was oblivious and lost somewhere inside the depths of her own tortured mind.
“You stupid … ,” his hand raised in the cold, light of the room, prepared to strike.
“No!” I screamed. My voice echoed and fell. I braced myself against the hatred I would see in his eyes but he turned to me, ridden with agony instead.
“You would save her?” Hadrian shook his head in disbelief. “Don’t you see?” He glanced at Brynn for a moment, then slowly faced me again, struggling to gain control of himself. His wings rippled with tension and at last fell silent and still by his side. His eyes were fixed with a sudden realization that confused and frightened me, and then with an ineffable sadness, he whispered, “You’re the pawn.”
Hadrian let Brynn drop to the ground, shaking in silence, the pieces of herself fallen and lost with the words Hadrian had just set free. In their presence I felt bitterly alone.
The whimpering started again and I wanted to tell her to shut up so I could hear myself think. With feverous speed I tried to make sense of this, but the ideas weren’t coming like I wanted them to. They were painfully slow and treaded through my mind like sludge. What was happening? Why was Hadrian staring at me so sadly? Why wouldn’t Brynn shut the hell up?
My head hurt horribly and my hands shot up to my hair and my fingers grabbed and pulled. Everything came rushing past the sludge just then.
Too fast.
I desperately wanted to go home, or better yet, have Garreth here to calm me and take this horrible feeling away. But it was just as I had feared it would be in the end. Just me.
A hum circulated through the air. An alien white noise. Buzzing. Hissing. I realized that Hadrian had turned back and was paying close attention to Brynn. She was chanting and rocking back and forth, completely unaware of her audience. Her arms wrapped tightly around her torso as if holding in the pieces.
“He promised me.” The words spilled out of her mouth, splitting the cold silence. I could almost see the room ripple with her voice.
“I could only pick one.” Her sentence cut short with laughter. “Could you blame me for picking the better of the two?”
She sounded like such a little girl. Her beautiful pale face looked innocent as she went on about her choices. For all I knew she could have been talking about pairs of shoes or the school lunch menu.
“What was the first choice, Brynn?” Hadrian prompted.
She looked in his direction with unseeing eyes, miles and miles away from the room the three of us were standing in.
“Solitary happiness.” She spoke as if we should know what she meant.
“And the second?”
Tears began to roll down her cheeks. For a moment I was stunned. I had never seen Brynn cry before and the sight of it startled me. It was so easy to forget she was human just like me. I felt time slow down and speed up in the same instant. All of a sudden I didn’t just know what her answer would be, I felt it.
“She would come back to me.” Brynn’s mouth formed a tiny smile.
“Who? Who would come back to you?” Hadrian asked, with impatience.
She turned to him, deft awareness returning to her brown eyes.
“My mother,” her voice rang with condescending innocence.
At that precise moment, a chill swept through me and I heard a voice far away in my conscience.
Give her what she seeks. Give her what she wants.
The words echoed inside me. It was what Nate had said back in his study.
Through my peripheral vision, I could see the outer spans of the room dimming. Shadow was closing in on us and I began to tremble.
With a ripping snap, Hadrian’s wings spread wide open, casting Brynn and me in dark shadow. Panic was in the warm breeze wafting down on us from the fluttering of Hadrian’s enormous wingspan. My hand tingled with searing heat and I grabbed my wrist in pain. Never before had I felt my mark blaze with such ferocious warning.
A hissing sound came to my ears through the quickly dimming room. I could see Brynn’s lips moving. She was chanting over and over to herself as she rocked back and forth. Her eyes were fixed and glazed.
“Snuff the light … snuff the light … snuff the light …”
Over and over she continued until my head was on the verge of exploding. I looked at my hand. My scrolled mark was shimmering with a white light.