Page 166 of The Blade in the Ashes
“This is what the Underworld looks like,” I mused, not even realizing I’d spoken aloud until both Ayanna and Clay’s heads snapped towards me, interest and fear flashing in both of their gazes.
Right. They hadn’t been to the Underworld.
No one else knew it as intimately as I did.
Except for Hyrax and Caldrius, of course.
“Parts of it, at least,” I explained, running my fingers around the smooth stone walls of the cave. “Other parts are quite beautiful. It’s filled with good people. People who care for each other and enjoy their time spent together.”
Something in my chest was warming. A force seemed to wrap itself around me, tugging me forward, and I followed its lead, allowing Clay and Ayanna to follow behind me.
“It’s a timeless sort of place, but it’s not isolating or frightening. It just is.”
Clay squeezed my hand. “Maybe one day you can show me.”
I smiled at him. “I’d like that.”
Once, I might have feared taking him there. I might have worried about what he would think of me when he met my father. I might have been terrified that if I brought him there, I wouldn’t be able to bring him back.
There was no room for fear now. Clay had loved me through every atrocity that we had experienced together. Nothing would take him from me now.
Ayanna pointed ahead of us. “Look.”
Around the bend ahead of us, a faint glowing light emerged, unnaturally bright. That force around me tugged even more sharply as I saw it, and I stumbled forward, dragging Clay behind me as he held tight to my hand. Ayanna rushed after us as I rounded the corner, and we all gasped as we took in the pulsating light glowing like thousands of tiny beams from the Veilstones bursting out of the rocks.
They were everywhere—stretching out of the floor, hanging from the ceiling. Smooth in some places, cracked and jagged in others. All the same opalescent, shimmering white as the necklace Caldrius had given me.
“It’s beautiful,” Ayanna breathed.
Clay walked towards the stones, taking in the way the light seemed to bend around him. “I thought they had all been looted.”
“They emerge when the Veil is thin,” Ayanna said, pulling the book from the satchel she had slung over her shoulder. “Maybe when you opened all those portals between realms, new stones formed.”
I nodded. Not only did it make sense, but—if I was honest with myself—Iwantedthat theory to be true. I wanted to believe that something this beautiful had come from that terrible day.
“Let’s do this.” I cleared my throat, steadying my shoulders as I turned towards her.
As much as I wanted to explore these caverns and see just how many of these beautiful stones had emerged, I wanted this all to be over more.
It was past time for Hyrax to return to the Underworld.
Ayanna nodded her agreement. She had read the instructions over and over in the single afternoon it had taken us to prepare to travel here, and then she and I had gone over them repeatedly on the journey here.
“Here.”
I took the blade she extended towards me, turning in Clay’s direction. Ayanna smiled softly, taking the hint and stepping aside, quickly busying herself with preparations to give us a moment of privacy before everything we knew changed.
He came towards me without hesitation, pulling my mouth to his and fusing his lips to mine. Momentarily, I allowed myself to melt into him, savoring that tiny spark of heat that rushed to life in my core. As he pulled back, he rested his forehead against mine.
“Is it terrible to admit that I’m scared?” I whispered, cradling his jawline in my palm.
He laughed, his breath warm against my face. “I am.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be telling me that this will work?”
Pressing his lips against mine once more, he lowered his hands to my hips and gave a reassuring squeeze. “Of course it will, but it’s still okay to be scared.”
I chewed on my lower lip. “And if it doesn’t work?”
