The tunnel I was in was carved from the same black stone as the temple had been, though I was nowhere near the wreckage of that place, so I was guessing this was either connected to it from afar or its own structure built alongside it.
I cast an amplification spell and held my breath as I listened for the sound of anyone else drawing close to me, but I didn’t detect anyone other than the Nymphs who were now walking through the clearing I’d been laying in just a few moments ago.
Once I was confident that I wasn’t about to bump into a Nymph down here, I let myself look around at the dark tunnel, taking in the unlit sconces which lined the walls and the carvings which marked the black stone.
I walked closer to one of them, spotting an image of a woman who looked a whole lot like Lionel’s Shadow freak as she cut her own flesh open with a sharp blade. I glanced at the image beside it, finding her now bleeding tendrils of smoke, winding their way from her body and into the hands of a Nymph who kneeled before her.
I arched a brow as I kept walking, seeing the Nymphs accepting the smoke which I was now guessing was actually meant to be the shadows before they got to their feet and grouped themselves together into an army.
I ran my fingers along the ridges of the carvings in the black stone as I took in the scenes of battle which finally culminated in a lot of celebrating Nymphs and a shadow bitch sitting on a throne with a crown on her psycho head.
I was hoping that whole scenario had been wishful thinking by the artist rather than some kind of prophecy, but I was willing to fight the stars themselves if it was the latter, because there was no fucking way I’d let that future come to pass while I still drew breath.
My boots echoed against the hard floor as I moved further along the empty tunnel and I cast a silencing bubble just in case anyone happened to get close enough to hear me before looking up at the roof and wondering what the hell I was supposed to do now.
Stardust would have been nice, but we’d split it between our group and I hadn’t been carrying any - not least because my Phoenix fire might well have destroyed it if I’d tried. So here I was, stuck in some Nymph tunnel with no idea where the others could be and an uneasy feeling that something had gone horribly wrong.
There had been no sign of any of them when I woke and no sounds of battle either, so what did that mean? They wouldn’t have just left me here, but I equally couldn’t accept any version of reality where they’d been beaten or taken captive. So what the hell was going on?
Before I could get too caught up in that question, the brush of fingers against the back of my hand made me jolt in surprise and I whirled around, Phoenix fire igniting in my fist as I prepared to fight. But there was no one there.
“Come,” the ethereal voice which had woken me before demanded and I stiffed in alarm, my gaze scouring the empty corridor as my senses prickled and I fought to figure out what the fuck was happening.
But before I could go all Phoenix on this place and just blast everything around me to shit in hopes of striking the invisible entity in the room too, I spotted a glimmer of something golden hidden between the stones near the foot of the passageway.
I knelt down, my fingernail catching in the little metal thing as I tugged it free of its hiding place and a tiny golden charm in the shape of a Hydra fell into my palm.
Energy rushed along my skin like a kiss of recognition and I straightened, frowning as silver footsteps appeared on the dark stone at the far end of the tunnel and I stilled, realisation finally finding me.
“Mom?” I breathed into the quiet, feeling like a fucking idiot for saying it aloud, but now that I wasn’t jumping at shadows, I was sure it was her. Or the memory of her at least.
“Come,” she repeated, the voice sounding further away now in the direction of the footsteps.
I swallowed a lump in my throat as I wished for Darcy to be here with me too before taking off after the ghost of my mother with the charm held tight in my fist.
The tunnel continued on along several corridors, short staircases leading me further beneath the ground and getting me turned around before I found myself in a wide chamber with a dark aura about it which made me hesitate on the threshold.
“You need to see,” my mother’s voice echoed around the open space and I stepped into the room, my gaze shifting over the chains which hung from the wall and the wooden chest which sat closed in the corner of the room, hiding fuck knew what.
But as I took another step forward, the room seemed to shift before my eyes and my gut swooped like I was falling as the black walls melted away and I found myself outside The Palace of Souls, watching as my parents strode up the steps and into the throne room, the sound of a cheering crowd following them in from outside.