Chapter Fifty-Six
Dangerous Memories to Forget
Echoing into the cavernous dark was a deep, thunderous roll of footsteps. They fell hard and sharp like striking stones and with every terrible movement, the cacophony became louder and the pendants on their chest-plates burned hotter.
Michael was frozen. Less than fifty paces away was either the advancing army of Nikereus or something just as terrible.
“We have to leave,” whispered Nichole, stowing her bow over-shoulder and grabbing Michael’s arm.
“We can’t!” he said, resisting her pull.
“You don’t think I want to find them, too? Ari is in there! My friends are in there!”
“We won’t even be able to outrun them!” Michael barked, squeezing her arm. “You know we can’t.”
They stared at one-another for a long second before Nichole’s stern face cracked and she shook her head. “You’re lucky that I’m the one who got stuck with you.” She stuck out her hand and Michael grabbed it reflexively. “If we move quick and quiet, we can weave through the ranks.”
Nichole took a deep breath and held it at the top of her lungs.
Michael watched with grim interest as her veins flushed to with dark shadows and from the depths of her muscles, the shade spread across her flesh like frost on a windowpane.
Michael was so used to seeing it happen instantly, like with Oliver, that he was confused, only to have his question suffocated away as the shadow leapt from her hand to his, enveloping him in darkness as it used his own strength to maintain itself.
He felt it drawing from him and Michael gritted his teeth in pain as he was swallowed by darkness.
“Breathe,” he heard Nichole whisper. “Now start walking.”
Michael fought to stay upright and as he looked up into the dark, figures began to etch out of the distance ahead. With every step they took, more appeared in the shadows behind them. And more. And more. Hundreds and thousands of soldiers began to fill the chamber and more were coming.
Michael had never felt so small in his life as he approached their front line. The two of them were bathed in shadow, but he felt naked.
Nichole urged him against the wall to avoid being trampled by the array and allowed the first units to pass by.
The six-armed, stone soldiers walked by blankly in perfect lock-step. The nearest of them were only three feet away and their swinging arms whipped the wind past Michael and Nichole.
Although they were both enveloped in darkness, the borrowed power allowed him to see Nichole in the vaguest outline, as though her command over hidden things allowed him to see things most couldn’t. Nichole appeared to him almost like a pencil-sketch only half completed, decorated in simple shades of black and grey and with little more detail than an outline of her shape and face. His body was so overwhelmingly tired and sore that the energy coursing through him almost revitalised his strength, but he knew it wouldn’t last.
Despite it, Michael couldn’t bring himself to budge from the cave wall as the armies marched by.
Nichole cast a glance at Michael as he tried to catch her eye and the two of them were warped into a state of Instinct, freezing all things about them.
The pain doubled. Michael was nearly sick from it as it washed over him like a plume of heat in the base of his skull.
The army froze mid-step. The raging noise of their march became still.
Nichole let out a breath of relief but it was underlined by so much pain she hardly was able to speak after the fact. “We need... to move against the current of this army. If we have any luck at all… the others will have found somewhere to hide...” she winced and doubled over in pain, separating herself from the time-frozen reality, and everything in their unmoving world began to jitter as their connection wavered.
Michael breathed through his own agony and nodded. “Stay tight to the wall. No matter what you do. You cannot let your Arcancy fail. If it does-”
“I know what will happen.” She forced herself back into a standing position. “I can do this.”
Michael nodded as a bead of blood trickled from his nose. He blinked as he felt it roll down onto his lip and instinctively touched it, only to fracture their connection even further before he retreated his hand to its position. “What’s happening to me?”
Nichole shuddered as she breathed. “We’re both using two forms of Arcancy at once and you’ve just recovered from a fatal injury. Its tearing us apart. It happened before during the fight.” Even as she spoke, Michael watched a droplet trickle from her ear.
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Michael remembered something. A fragment of a distant conversation. “Turning. When Arcancy is overused. Is this how it happens?”
Nichole didn’t answer, which said everything he didn’t want to hear. “Are you ready?”
Michael looked over the first few dozen soldiers before them and then to the seemingly endless mass behind them and shook his head. “Let’s do it anyway.”
“Three... two... one!”
Nichole broke their connection but made sure not to abandon her Arcancy surge completely, keeping their camouflage alive.
The army’s march resumed and they were again engulfed in the thunderous clash of stone feet on the cavern floor.
Nichole and Michael made their way along the path, scooting just alongside the array, unbeknownst to the shanii themselves.
As soon as they had been moving for as much time as a minute, Michael knew Nichole could only keep it up so long. His Arcancy was aiding hers in a way which he didn’t understand, but it wasn’t enough. They were both so worn through already that it was like fanning a dead bonfire. The coals were crumbling.
Whilst Michael was busy wiping blood away from his running nose, Nichole stopped more suddenly that he was prepared for and Michael twisted, scrapping his bow along the stone.
The sound sang out a pitched sheet! It echoed on and on and the duo held their breath.
But the endless array of Soiltorn soldiers kept marching, without so much as a flinching halt. Their faces were beyond blank as their obsidian purple eyes stared forth into nothing.
Michael had seen a few different Creations, and every one of them, be it rage or madness, had some emotion about them when alarmed. These Obthraie didn’t. They were painfully empty.
Michael leaned into Nichole and whispered, “Do they even know anything is going on around them? I thought monsters could sense Arcancy... and I know for a fact they can hear.”
Nichole looked just as lost as him. “There is something off about all of this,” she whispered, still paranoid. “Come on, maybe we can-” blood hacked from her mouth. Nichole quickly wiped it and Michael stared at her in horror.
“Nicky?”
Nichole shook her head. “No time.”
Before he could ask any more, she tightened her grip on his hand and they moved as fast as possible against the tide of the Soiltorn.
As they dashed, Michael couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d dragged them all into. He should’ve turned them back before the Nithe attack. James nearly died because he didn’t. He should’ve made them retreat as soon as they’d known about the Spy. But he didn’t. For all he knew, Magnus was turning them all in to Nikereus as they ran further into the trap. He should’ve known enough to save himself from the monster dust during the Shade Hound ambush, but he didn’t. He should’ve listened to Nichole. He should’ve listened to his mother. He should’ve listened to Jack. To Archie’s amulets. Amekot’s snide words.
He should’ve listened to everyone.
And he didn’t.
Now everyone was paying the price for it.
Nichole’s steps had slowed down and blood now trickled from her eyes and mouth, so much so that he could see her trying not to swallow it as they ran.
They stumbled as silently as possible around the army’s edges when they saw another pair of arching corridors.
The army ranks thinned to single file, marching through the right-most gateway, but the left seemed to connected to a small checkpoint room. It was lit with purple torches which cast no shadows and the light seemed to stain Michael’s eyes as he blinked.
The great army funnelled slowly through the small gate before re-joining their ranks on the other side and moving on.
“That room. We need-” a retch cracked in Michael’s throat and he coughed a spray of blood onto his hand. He gestured emphatically and Nichole nodded drearily.
She took one step and buckled. Michael narrowly caught her before she clattered straight into a stone soldier. Sweat ran down Michael’s face as he fought to keep her upright.
Michael swung her arm over his shoulder and began slowly stepping through the ranks, moving rhythmically in time with their marching steps, like a court dance, moving between them toward the open passage.
The last of the warmth in Michael was gone. And he began to shake from chills. He looked instinctively to the pendant but it was still burning hot upon his armour.
Frowning, Michael realised Nichole was no longer maintaining her power, but he was maintaining her. But the Arcancy was not his own. His soul, his body, his blood... whatever it was, it knew it was not his power to wield, and so all he could do was stop her from letting go, but it was costing him every inch of his borrowed strength.
The doorway was empty, and so close. But it might as well have been a thousand leagues away.
Michael couldn’t feel his feet and a wave of dark crashed over him as he narrowly slumped to the floor, fighting to stay conscious.
They fell to a crawl and within a moment, couldn’t so much as reach out their hands to move forward anymore.
Nichole twitched and writhed until finally her grasp fell away from his hand. The world was cold without her touch.
The darkness bled back into the world around them as their concealment broke and Michael could see more blood on her face than the skin beneath it. The noise of the march went silent, and for a long moment, Michael briefly wished they’d both died, if only so they wouldn’t have to face what came next.
“I used to find myself envious you know,” Nikereus spoke, rather softly. “That Draendicans… Legacies… world allowed to wield the power of creation.”
A stone hand reached down and scraped a fingertip’s worth of blood off Michael’s jaw followed by an almost sympathetic tsk tsk.
At the Stone Monarch’s touch, Michael fought his eyes open to see them.
They were a Soiltorn, and exactly as those marching by, this one had their subtle differences. Their entire being was wrought from a mixture of pale and dark stone. Their smile seemed fixed upon their face and features were sharp, almost Atyon and nymph-like. Unlike the others, Nikereus’ eyes were closer to blue than purple. A blue not unlike his own.
“Now, however, I wonder if perhaps I was mistaken,” Nikereus said, their eyes light with amusement. “Doesn’t seem much like the power of gods to me, at least.”
Michael blinked slowly.
A piece of Michael’s mind was disappointed. He felt his head roll back onto the stone. He reached for Nichole’s hand and somewhere faraway, he heard Nikereus mutter orders to their soldiers.
As Michael reached numbly in the dark for his friend, his necklace shifted and the crown-pendant slipped out from beneath his shirt.
The last thing he remembered was its slow flash of bright, white light.