| |
“Mum said this animal would be the death of me. I should’ve listened to her,” Ella muttered. “This is what I get for trying to turn him into a house pet!”
She ran, or at least tried to, before losing her footing on the loose earth. “Fidget!”
As Ella reached the edge of the cliff face, the ground beneath her fell away.
She screamed, falling through the air for several seconds, until she hit the edge of the cliff again. Rocks and brambles cut into her arms, legs, and face as she rolled down the embankment, making her cry out in pain. She tried to grab onto things as she descended, but kept losing her grip.
Ella yelped as she landed on the edge. A deep cavern filled with blackness loomed below. She winced, clutching her face as blood dripped down her cheek.
“La.” Fidget appeared beside her; the stone still clutched in his front paw.
“What are you doing?” she grumbled and scrambled up. “It’s going to—”
The earth beneath her feet gave way. She shrieked, clawing for something to hold on to. She fell through darkness for what seemed like forever until she finally landed hard on solid earth, and the air left her lungs.
Her head throbbed. Her face, arms, and legs all stung. Ella closed her eyes, wanting the nightmare to end.
Groaning, she rolled over onto her side, relieved she could still move all her limbs. Nothing seemed to be broken, and she managed to sit up without too much pain. Darkness surrounded her, so thick and heavy it felt like a living thing, watching her, waiting for her to do something.
She raised her hand. Light flared to life like tiny stars between her fingers as beautiful, coloured flames burst forth. Ella prayed her keyno wasn’t hovering around. Magic wasn’t supposed to exist here. Only people living on the other side of the border were supposed to possess it. It came from their strange pagan goddess.
Her father had always warned she couldn’t show her gift to anyone. If they found out, her people wouldn’t hesitate to put her to death, just as they did with anyone suspected of possessing magical talent. She never used the magic—not intentionally—but she’d always wondered where her strange power had come from. Part of her had hoped coming to the old city would provide answers.
She also hoped it might give her answers as to why, and how, her father disappeared ten years earlier. No one had ever been able to give her or her mother an explanation as to why he’d vanished without a trace. Legend stated that their ancestors had not only possessed magic, but used it for incredible things, like wandering into different realms. As much as she doubted it, she clung onto her hope something similar had happened to him, and he was still out there somewhere.
The fire rose higher from her hand, hovering above her and creeping through the blackness. Cuts and abrasions covered her arms. She noticed a deep slash on her shoulder, but it had clotted with blood and dirt. Her trousers were torn, too. She glanced around for signs of white fur. Her heart skipped a beat as she began to panic. What if he’d been hurt?
“Fidget!” Her voice echoed through the darkness, and she moved the flames lower to examine the dark earth surrounding her. Finally, she spotted Fidget sitting a few feet away. He chortled and waved, scurrying over to her. Dirt and bits of bramble clung to him, but he appeared unharmed.
Ella breathed a sigh of relief, but admonished him. “Fine mess you’ve gotten us into!”
She used her light to scan the space, but saw nothing but blackness. Too thick for the flames to penetrate. Rocks covered the ground, and she looked up to see how far they had fallen. As she stared, faint slivers of sunlight crept down through the darkness. Fallen earth and pieces of trees covered the steep cliff face, and there was nothing but sheer hard rock all the way up.
“Too bad my magic can’t help us,” she grumbled as she tore off a piece of her tunic, tying it around her arm as best as she could. “How are we gonna get out of here? Really, Fidget, why do you have to be such a...”
Her voice trailed off as dread washed over her at the thought of being swallowed further into the darkness. Something inside her warned her to stay put, but she knew she had to find a way out.
Ella twisted her link and tried to engage a call. “Eric, are you there? Luc, come in. Please, if you guys can hear me, answer.” Despite their recent break up and her desire to stay away from him, she’d have been glad to talk to Luc now. Even if it meant hearing him lecture about being so reckless.
She waited, but only static greeted her. She guessed she was either too far underground for the call to work or she’d damaged the link during her fall. She twisted the device again. After a few more attempts, the link’s light finally engaged as a thin blue glow emanated from her wrist. It didn’t do much to cut the darkness, but the light gave her a little more comfort. Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could just make out the outline of a large cavern a few feet in front of her.
Ella moved along, careful not to trip on any fallen debris. Fidget scurried alongside her. She expected to find an empty void filled with nothing but rocks and dirt, but up ahead she spotted something white glistening in the darkness. Goosebumps covered her arms as she approached.
Odd, she thought, but she didn’t believe in omens or superstitious nonsense.
She pressed her link a few more times to increase the intensity of the beam. Rubbing away at the stone of the cavern with her fingers. Whiteness appeared underneath the dirt. She couldn’t be certain, but it looked exactly like the stone used back at the castle. Maybe this section had fallen away and become buried at some point in the last thousand years?
Ella felt a rush of excitement. Maybe she’d found what she’d been looking for. Cursing the fact that she didn’t have any tools with her, she continued to rub away at the dirt, praying she wouldn’t damage anything by using her bare, bloodied hands. As she ran her fingers along the stone further up, she felt odd shapes.
Something glittered in the low light, reflecting in the orbs of her floating fire. She realised more runes were etched along the walls as she shone her light closer. They were just like the ones she’d found outside.
“I take back everything I said. Well done, Fidget!”
Ella moved further along the wall, using her fingers to trace every shape. The runes vanished, revealing a gap and a door that seemed to block it. She brought her fire down closer and saw that it was indeed a stone doorway, yet there seemed to be no sign of a handle.
Something gold glistened in the low light at the edges of her vision. She turned to find her keyno on the floor and grabbed it, relieved to find it still working. She checked to make sure it wasn’t recording before stowing it away. The last thing she needed to worry about was having to explain how she conjured floating fire.
“Fidget, this is incredible. I wonder what this place was?”
She rubbed her hands together, feeling a rush of excitement, and examined the doorway. Trying to find an opening, but found nothing. Next, she ran her hands along the other side of the wall, touching each of the runes one by one. As she touched the last rune in the first row, something hissed and vibrated. With a loud groan, the door swung open. Ella coughed as a wave of dust swirled around her.
She called her fire closer, so she could examine the space inside. Art had been carved along the walls, depicting various people accompanied by strange symbols that she had seen before in the old city. She and her friend Sam, the historian on their expedition, were still trying to figure out what they were, hoping to use them to decipher the written language of the ancients. Ella knew they were close to making a breakthrough. As she scanned the other walls, she noticed more people who she guessed were the ancestors. Some looked as though they had green skin, but others had pale white skin and wore long, flowing robes. The green-skinned people seemed to have large, ominous teeth. That made her shudder, but she shook off the feeling. None of the images she had uncovered in other parts of the city had depicted anything like this, preferring instead to focus on the ancestors’ way of life and the deeds they had done.
Ella fumbled with her keyno, relieved when its bright white light broke through the darkened room. The darkness seemed somehow thinner here than the heavy shroud that had surrounded her outside.
“I can’t wait to start researching. I knew there was more down here. I just knew it!”
Examining the floor further, she found the bones of what appeared to be a woman, judging by the size and shape of the skull. Another body lay nearby. She suspected there may be more. Something bad had happened here.
She couldn’t wait to test the bones back in her lab. Having actual remains of the ancestors was a dream come true for someone as obsessed with her heritage as she was, and even Master Griffin would be impressed.
“La, home,” Fidget squeaked as he followed her in. “La and Fidget go home.” He wrapped his tail around her foot and clung to her leg, frightened.
Ella frowned down at him, surprised by his fear. He never seemed afraid of anything. “I’m trying. We need to find a way out that doesn’t involve trying to climb up the cliff.”
She moved through the room, checking the walls as she went. With a flick of her hand, she made her fire bigger and brighter, but kept it away from the keyno’s line of sight.
Fidget’s fur slicked back and his tail raised. His eyes turned bright blue as he went into defence mode and hissed a warning, “Bad.”
Ella ignored him and waved a hand, spotting what looked like an archway carved into the back wall. Runes were etched around it, and a circle with a wavy line through the centre had been carved above.
On closer inspection, there was no gap for entry, let alone a handle.
A door that led nowhere?
“This is incredible,” Ella breathed. “I wonder what the ancients used it for. Maybe—”
“Bad,” Fidget hissed again, louder this time. “Home.”
“Soon. Maybe this thing is a transportation device to help us get above ground,” she mused, moving closer to the wall. Had it been used for decoration or ceremony?
White fur blurred in front of her as Fidget stood in her way and growled.
Ella drew back, alarmed. She’d never seen him act like this before. “What is wrong with you?” She put her hands on her hips, frowning. “You know not to interfere when I’m working.”
She moved past him, and the runes glowed brighter as she touched the wall.
“Bad, bad, bad,” Fidget repeated, tugging at her trouser leg with his tiny paw.
“Ella?” a voice called. Seconds later, the figure of a man appeared.
“Who...Who are you?” Ella gasped.
The man’s form wavered, making it almost impossible for her to see what he looked like.
“Help me!” The man reached a hand out. “Please, I’m dying.”
Ella tried to see through the swirling golden light that surrounded him and stumbled. She reached her hand out to touch the glowing wall, and static jolted through her, first shooting up her arm, then flinging her across the chamber. An image of a dark-haired woman crying flashed through her mind. She hit the ground hard, her head knocking against the wall.
Ella winced, clutching her head as she sat up.
What was that?
She looked up, but her vision started to waver.
A blur of darkness emerged from the archway, which glowed with golden light again. Glittering emerald eyes stared at her, and Ella caught a glimpse of long white hair. Fidget hissed at the shape, his fur slicking back as he growled in warning.
She screamed as the blur drew closer and threw a glowing ball of purple fire at it. The creature growled and vanished in a flash of light. As darkness dragged her under, Ella thought she heard the whisper of voices and a chorus of low growls before everything went black.
