Chapter 9 The Crucible

Darius reached down and lifted the obsidian blade. The moment his skin touched the black stone, the countless cold voices inside his head fell completely silent. The confusion in his mind disappeared, replaced by a single, sharp thought that burned like an ember in his chest.

Vengeance.

He turned back toward the narrow tunnel, the heavy book tucked firmly under his left arm and the black dagger held tight in his right hand. He didn't look at Vane again. He walked out of the circular chamber, his movements faster now, his steps lighter, the shadows around his boots moving in perfect alignment with his stride like a well-trained vanguard.

Lira followed close behind him, her boots clicking rapidly against the glass-smooth stones as she tried to keep up with his new, terrifying speed.

When they burst back into the main cavern, the pale rays of the morning sun were already hitting the mouth of the cave, turning the gray fog into a bright, blinding white wall. Elara was on her knees near the water spring, her silver runes flaring with a frantic, desperate speed as she tried to maintain the hiding ward. Her side was bleeding fresh red through the old cloth, her breath coming in short, painful rattles that showed her strength was nearly gone.

“Darius… they are here,” she gasped out, her hand dropping from the stone as the silver light flickered and died. “The scouts… they didn't wait for the main army to line the roads.”

Darius walked past her, his black eyes fixed entirely on the narrow entrance of the cleft.

Through the small opening in the rock, he could see three men standing on the gravel path outside. They wore the silver breastplates of the king’s elite rangers, their long bows pulled back tight to their ears, their arrows tipped with enchanted iron that hissed in the wet fog. Behind them, the distant, heavy thud of forty more horses was echoing up the rocky trail from the valley below, their metal horseshoes throwing up loose gravel.

“We found the tracks!” the lead ranger shouted, his voice close and loud against the mountain walls. “The traitor is inside the cleft! Archers, level the gap! Take the woman alive!”

Lira crouched in the deepest corner of the cave, her hands pressed hard over her stomach as she wept silently into the dark moss, her body shaking from the sudden shouts. She looked up at him as he stepped into the light of the entrance, her eyes catching the jagged obsidian blade in his hand and the thick book under his arm.

“Darius,” she whispered, her voice full of a sudden, heartbreaking realization that cut through the noise of the boots outside. “You are not coming back to the valley, are you? We are never going home.”

Darius did not look back at her face. He kept his eyes on the three rangers outside, his jaw setting tight as the black veins on his neck began to pulse with the raw, controlled power of the first king. The obsidian dagger in his hand felt warm now, its black surface absorbing the pale morning light until the blade seemed to vanish into the shadows of his grip.

“The valley is dead, Lira,” he said, his double voice shaking the mountain stones until small pebbles rained down from the ceiling. “We are building a new house out of their bones.”

He stepped out of the narrow cleft and into the morning sun, his shadows rising up around his shoulders like a towering wall of black fire as the first volley of silver arrows came whistling through the gray trees.

The three rangers did not have time to release a second string. Darius threw his left hand wide, and the shadows from the pine trees tore themselves from the wood, rushing across the gravel path like a pack of starving wolves. The dark tendrils wrapped around the men's throats, choking their shouts before they could even reach the trail below. Their silver armor turned black and brittle, crashing into the dirt as the cold void drained the life from their chests. Darius stood alone on the cliff side, his black eyes watching the long line of horsemen winding up the mountain path, his hand tightening around the stone dagger as the mountain wind howled around his face.