Chapter 134
Chapter 134
Serafine POV
Rising slowly, I brush the dirt from my knees. Though the weight in my chest doesn’t lift, I have to focus. What I saw wasn’t just any memory, it was a warning. A boundary that was once crossed, or maybe it was crossed more than once? The Hollow didn’t show me that to frighten me, but to help guide
- me.
“We have to go deeper,” I say. Then, I turn to face Xander. “It’s not just the tree. This is the surface, there’s something beneath it and I need to find it.”
I don’t wait, I move and begin to circle the tree, looking at the base of the Soulroot until my eyes catch something. A seam in the earth that’s nearly hidden beneath a snarl of roots and moss that’s trying to hide it. It looks like the tree is growing out of a stone that’s split straight down the middle. As! lean closer, I can see the faintest glimmer of silver light along the crack.
That’s weird, the fact there’s a stone that the tree is growing through. I kneel against and my press my hand to the stone. The ground shifts, and responds instantly.
Roots begin to twitch and move aside, like they are been dragged out of the way by unseen hands, then the moss recedes as well. I watch in shock as the crack widens, not from force but almost like recognition. It’s not resisting me, it’s allowing me in. It wants me to go into the ground.
The split widens with a low grinding sound, and a narrow stairwelt of stone leads beneath the Soulroots trunk. Yeah, that’s definitely an invitation to go down. I hesitate for a breath then turn to look at Xander.
He’s already behind me. His eyes are fixed on the passage, his expression is unreadable as he shifts Eryx higher in his arms. “Are you sure about this, Serafine?”
“No,” I admit. “But I think the Hollow is.”
Taking the first step the air changes immediately, the more I go down the more it changes. The air grows warmer, denser and is filled with a scent that make smy head swim. It’s like old earth, ash and something oddly and faintly sweet. I can see the magic clings to the walls like fog. As we keep going down, the light doesn’t fade, it somehow follows us, seeping from the stone itself, and illuminating the spiraling path downward.
As we get deeper the quieter becomes weird, it’s not exactly silent but it’s low, almost like a heartbeat in the stone, a steady thrym that is just beneath the edge of hearing. Eryx stirs once then settles again, and Xander is a silent shadow behind me. His eyes are watching everywhere, for everything, he’s ready for something to happen, but hopefully it won’t.
As I get to the bottom the passage opens into a wide cavern and my breath catches.
The roots of the Soulroot hand from the ceiling, they look like thousands of suspended threads, and all are glowing faintly. They pulse with a rhythm that seems to mimic or match my heartbeat.
Pools of still water cover the flood in perfect, round shapes and inside each floats something different. Pieces of a memory, a battlefield, a woman’s face, a newborn baby, a fire, each is different.
In the center of the cavern stands a single stone pedestal, upon it, rests a bowl carved from obsidian, and it’s filled with a dark liquid that shifts on its
own.
Stepping forward, I feel drawn to it. The bowl is only small, it’s no larger than my palms, but the power it radiates makes my breath catch in my throat.
I can feel my magic tugging, like it’s been pulled again, it’s like it resonates with it. It’s like it’s waiting to be touched, to be used.
Xander stops at the edge of the pool, and his eyes scan the place. He’s anxious, I know he is, especially as his hand is resting on the hilt of his blade that’s fixed at his side. He doesn’t speak, but he’s alert. Every inch of him is ready, tense and prepared for the unknown.
Moving, I place my hands on either side of the bowl, the surface of the liquid begins to shift, and I watch as it ripples once, twice then goes completely still, more than before.
Suddenly, it changes, and images flicker beneath the surface, the crops rotting, fields withering and the land cracking open under drought. Beneath it all, there’s something deeper. It looks like a network, map, or something. Maybe a thread system, glowing like silver veins through the soil? I can see the
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Chapter 134
threads running under every field, every forest, and every pack territory. The land is alive, connected and pulsing with magic, but are section of it has gone dark, it’s infected and severed.
1 see it clearly now. The crops aren’t dying from any bad spell, or lack of care, they’re being cut off from the flor of magic that is meant to feed them and keep them alive. Something of someone is draining the land from underneath, it’s not rot, it’s theft and somehow it’s spreading across everything.
Jerking my hands back from the bowl, my breathing is ragged.
“What did you see?” Xander asks.
Turning to face him, my voice is sharp with urgency. “It’s not natural, it’s decay. Something is pulling the magic away from the land, like a leech. That’s the reason our crops stayed alive because of the magic, that’s why the crops at the other pack came back, because of the magic. It’s there, intact, but only just. If this keeps going, it’s going to spread to everywhere, and destroy everything.
“Can we stop it?”
My eyes drop and I look at the bowl, my magic stills hums in my veins, shaken but alive.
“I don’t know yet. But now we know what we’re fighting.”
The Hollow brought us here for this, not just to witness, but to understand, and now that we do, we can finally begin.
