The Keeper's Flame (A Pandoran Novel, #2) (31 page)

Funny. Hasn’t someone told you that before?

Conscience, not right now, please.

I held her tight. “Not like this, you aren’t.”

I thought she was going to fight me, but with a sigh, she slumped against my shoulder, succumbing to her exhaustion.

Now what?

The wind blew, fierce and cold, chilling my bones. Some of Vera’s hair wafted in my mouth, and I spit it out as I searched and searched for somewhere to go. Everything still looked the same, white and black with varying shades of grey. No changes in topography, no hillsides with caves, no…

The trees.

Maybe…there had to be…

“I need you to walk,” I said to Vera.

She didn’t answer, but I knew she’d heard me.

I started moving forward, holding her against me as she dragged her feet through the snow. My ankle burned with her weight, and I clenched my teeth to keep from crying out. I sure hoped what I was looking for wasn’t much farther, or I wouldn’t be able to make it.

We trudged through the snow as wind whipped around us, blowing snowflakes everywhere—in my face, my eyes, beneath my cloak. I paused and reached out with my senses, trying to detect energy, trying to detect anything.

Nothing.

The world around me was dead; the only life force I could feel was Vera’s beside me, and even that was fading.

I kept walking, step after agonizing step, pulling her dead weight after me. The winter wind whistled, tugging at my cloak and hair, stinging my eyes.

My ankle gave out and I collapsed, bringing Vera down with me.

Get up!

I couldn’t move; I was so cold.

The wind blew snow in my face, but I was too tired to wipe it off.

Move! It’s just a little farther…

But it wasn’t. I had been wrong. There was nothing but emptiness and cold and…

I felt it, in the distance. Humming and vibrating with energy, so soft I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t stopped. My lids snapped open, and, with a groan, I pushed myself up.

The wind howled, drowning out everything else, but once it passed and was quiet, I could sense the vibrations again.

My heart beat faster with hope, and I tugged Vera back to her feet.

She moaned something that I couldn’t understand, but her strong flicker of annoyance told me I didn’t want to. I slipped my arms around her and pulled her after me, toward the pulse faintly resonating in the air.

It was so dark. I wouldn’t have been able to see anything if it hadn’t been for the snow, reflecting what little light existed, amplifying it enough so that I could avoid running into trees.

Step by slow step, I walked, carrying Vera forward, all the way until we reached it.

Carefully, I set her down on the ground beside the stump and took a deep breath. The air stung and my teeth chattered, but my lips were too cold to move. Shaking, I took off my gloves and pressed my stiff hands against the tree trunk; it felt warm.

“I just need…” I slipped my pack from my shoulder and reached inside. My fingers touched on something cold as ice and hard as stone. I pulled it out; it was a coin. “This.” I pushed the coin into the bark and stepped back. “Please work.”

The coin sank into the tree and, like a curtain, the bark pulled back, leaving a dark opening behind.

I sighed my relief and looked back at Vera, who had noticed none of it. I slung my pack over my shoulder and grabbed her by the ankles. “Please don’t kill me for this,” I said, and dragged her through the snow into the belly of the tree.

It was just like the tree I’d been in with the Del Contes—the shroud. This one wasn’t nearly as furnished as the other had been, or as warm. There were two stools standing on the dried pine needle covered floor, and the walls were bare, knotted and rotting. A single torch, hanging above the opening, had come to life the moment we’d stepped inside, and little bugs scurried away, hiding in the earth and shadows.

But at least there wasn’t snow and wind.

I pulled Vera away from the opening, laid her down at the far side of the tree, sat beside her, and leaned back against the wall, shaking.

My body was frozen. The cold had gone past my fingers and toes, and frozen my bones. Even breathing hurt. I was so cold that I thought I’d never be warm again.

More than anything I wanted a fire—something to thaw myself—but there was nothing I could do. I had no magic and Vera certainly couldn’t do any. She barely had enough strength left to breathe.

I slipped my pack from my shoulder; it was empty. Of course it was empty. It never gave me anything I wanted, just exactly what I needed.

How to convince this stubborn black sack that I needed a fire…?

“The unseen,” Vera whispered beside me.

I looked down at her.

Her eyes were closed, but her breathing had relaxed, as had the lines on her face, making her look less like a warrior and more like a beautiful young woman.

I watched her in silence, waiting for her to continue, but she didn’t. “Vera?” I whispered.

Her eyes fluttered open and fastened on me. Her dark eyes were penetrating, searching and curious and angry, and then she started to push herself up.

“Here…” I reached out to help her, but she jerked away from me.

With a soft grunt, she sat upright and leaned against the tree with a sigh. “Where are we?”

“Um, technically, we’re inside of a tree.”

She arched a brow and her surprise flushed over me. “You found a shroud?”

“Yes.”

She was quiet, thoughtful.

“Vera,” I started.

She glanced at me.

“What were those things back there?”

She inhaled deeply as her pain peaked and faded. “The unseen. Dark spirits.”

“I saw the dark rider,” I said. “I think he sent them.”

Her jaw clenched, and she swallowed.

“Are they…native to this area?” I asked.

Vera shook her head and shut her eyes. “They’re not native to anywhere. They shouldn’t exist. The unseen—” she winced “—are spirits of the dead.”

The tree groaned and creaked against the winter wind outside.

“Spirits of the dead?” I whispered.

“Yes.” She adjusted herself. “Pulled from the afterlife. Once pulled, they answer only to the person that summoned them.”

“Someone brought those three spirits from this…afterlife?”

“There weren’t just three. Each consists of hundreds—hundreds of angry spirits melded together beneath the control of one master, forced to do his bidding. And when they touch you, they suck out your soul until there is nothing left but an empty shell.”

I thought of the guards. The men who’d looked ashen and shriveled as though their insides had been pulled from them. I thought of the feeling I’d had, when one of the unseen had touched me. It had been as though someone were ripping apart my insides.

“Is that what attacked the guards at the castle?”

Vera nodded slowly.

And that was what had been in the hallway, when I’d been with Thad. But why hadn’t they attacked us then?

“They’re answering to the dark rider,” I said.

Vera was quiet.

“I saw him right after they attacked. If we find him, we can make him stop this,” I said.

Vera shook her head and her lips twisted sardonically. “You can’t make the dark rider do anything, princess.”

I remembered something. “By the way,” I said, “what happened to your pack?”

Her anger flared so hot, I almost regretted asking her.

“Danton,” she said through her teeth.

“Danton…?”

“He took it.”

Wait, what? That didn’t make any sense. “But why would he do that?”

“Why would he do that, indeed?” she sneered. “It was right after we walked through the wall. He…caught me off guard and took it.” She shrugged it off, but I felt her rage.

It was a battle she had lost, and she didn’t want to talk any more about it.

But still. I had a difficult time believing that of Danton, but Vera wasn’t lying. Had he known she was being attacked by the unseen? He could’ve helped her. He could’ve helped her so that we wouldn’t be in the state we were in now.

The only “healthy” person was the one who knew nothing and had no magic.

“You really can’t do magic.” Vera was studying me, her face unreadable.

I shook my head. “I don’t know what happened back there.” I stared at the opening. “I wish it had been me, because that would mean I could do magic and I could make us a fire.”

Vera leaned back against the tree and stared at nothing. “You’re mental, you know that?”

I snorted. “Yeah, actually. I’ve been called that a lot, lately.”

“And, apparently, it isn’t doing any good.”

“None,” I said.

Amusement sparked in her, but she said nothing.

“How are you feeling, by the way?” I asked, knowing full well the pain ached deep in her bones.

“Fine,” she said.

I arched a brow. “Is a near death experience normal for you, then?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Commonplace.” I didn’t feel anger from her, though; I felt something much more curious and…amused.

“The fire and ice—is it helping you?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “It numbs the pain”—
hardly
—“but it’ll take magic to rid of it completely. Their touch is like poison in your blood.”

“I wonder why it didn’t affect me,” I said.

Vera sighed, sagging against the wall. “It hardly touched you before it was destroyed.” She looked pointedly at me with those scrutinizing dark eyes, and I glanced away, uncomfortable.

Silence.

“Why did you enter the games?”

Startled, I glanced up. There was nothing malicious in her eyes, nothing rude or judgmental.

I wrapped my arms around my legs. “To save Fleck.”

Her confusion swelled and quickly turned into understanding. “The Daloren child.”

I nodded, staring absently at the floor.

“Why?” she asked.

Was it safe to tell her? “It’s…sort of a long story.”

I felt her eyes on me like lasers, but she sat quiet with her thoughts.

“What about you?” I asked. “Why did you enter?”

She didn’t answer me at first. Instead, she looked away and stared at the space before her for a long, silent moment. Her eyes grew darker and her anger ignited and burned like hot coals.

And, for once, it wasn’t directed at me.

“To save myself,” she said at last; her voice a thread, thin and pulled taut.

Agony flashed through her. She shut her eyes until it passed, and then lay down on the floor, exhausted.

She needed help. She needed help and I couldn’t give it to her. To see someone so strong, so fierce and so capable, to see her unable to stand, unable to will away the pain, made her seem so…human.

So much like me.

“
To save myself
,” she had said.

But from what? What could she—a beautiful, strong and powerful woman—possibly need that she didn’t have already?

Freedom.

But she was free. She had been free to attend the Academia, free to become an Aegis, free to enter the games. I remembered her mother, then—the scantily dressed leader of Gesh. I remembered how she had screamed at Vera, and Vera had been embarrassed and furious but succumbed to the woman’s demand regardless.

What had happened in her life to create such hard lines of defiance, such sharp angles of anger? What had made her…this?

“Who are you?” I whispered to myself, sagging against the tree as exhaustion set in.

****

It was a landscape I recognized. Empty and desolate—devoid of all life. The world bled to death around me as the air cried out in misery. So many voices, so many heart-wrenching voices, but I could see none of them.

All that mattered was the box, the one in my hands.

It was a strange box, and I couldn’t recall how it had gotten there, but I was holding it. Small and black and simple, rectangular in shape. So much fuss over such a tiny object.

And yet I’d waited for this moment—begged for this moment. To hold it in my hands and open it. Find the knowledge sealed inside. The knowledge of the Pandors. It was all that could save us now.

I trailed my fingers along the lip of the lid. Power radiated form the box. This was it.

I lifted the lid and peered inside.

****

A soft crunch startled me awake.

I didn’t even remember falling asleep. I glanced at Vera; she was fast asleep, her chest rising and falling slowly.

Had I dreamed the sound?

Crunch
.

No, someone, or something, was outside.

I pulled my dagger from its sheath and stood, creeping toward the entrance. The shadows beyond were thick and black, and the snow shone a dull grey. I couldn’t see anything unusual.

I had started to turn back inside the tree when I heard a soft crunch again, closer this time. Considering I hadn’t seen any signs of life all day, save Danton and Vera, I wasn’t too thrilled about hearing one now.

Maybe it was nothing.

But what if it isn’t?

Vera was in no state to defend herself. I needed to see what was making the noise, and if it was anything potentially harmful, I needed to make sure it stayed away from the shroud, away from Vera. With a deep breath, I pressed myself against the tree and slipped outside into the shadows.

The night held its breath.

There was nothing. Just tree after giant, black tree. The shadows were still, waiting. Even the wind was quiet. I reached outside of myself, trying to get a sense of life—anything—but there was nothing.

I shivered, holding my cloak tight, clutching the icy hilt of my dagger, and took a step forward. I felt something then, not far in the distance. Something…cold.

I looked back at the tree; from here, you couldn’t tell there was an opening and that anyone was inside of it.

Good, at least Vera would be safe.

With a deep breath, I stepped forward into the shadows. My footsteps crunched softly in the snow as a cold breeze whispered past, and a dark shape lunged from the shadows. I jumped out of the way and spun around, breathing hard.