DARKHAVEN | "Three Sisters" Book One

Chapter Twenty-Four

Blodwyn 

Down the Lords took the sisters, down and down and down until at last they were beneath even the blackest cells of the castle dungeons.

The sisters were fitted with training gear and heavy woollen cloaks to keep them warm and dry in the wet, oppressive darkness of the lowermost chambers. Their magelight—the only light—cast long inhumanly stretched shadows on the damp walls, and the air itself was slick with cold moisture that clung to their skin like the touch of a ghost.

The sisters could feel the weight of the darkness bearing down upon them, threatening to never allow them the light of day again.

"How much farther?" asked Gia.

The Lords navigated the tunnels with their backs to the sisters. "We're almost there," promised Aleskander in return.

Blodwyn was keeping track of every turn they made, every ramshackle wooden-slat bridge they crossed, every landmark and every detail she could make out in the dark. It wouldn't be out of character for the Lords to leave them down in the hellish depths beneath the castle and demand they find their way back as a sort of "training." They were too deep down for the spirits to find them—deep, deep beneath the crushing pressure of the earth. She would be the one to get her sisters out of there if need be.

They were almost there indeed. They turned one final corner and found themselves facing a door that seemed, somehow, to be even more ancient than the castle and the tunnels itself. Right away the sisters could tell it was heavily warded with magic unlike anything they'd ever sensed. Blodwyn recoiled at the intensity of the magic that emanated from it. It wasn't evil or malevolent, just...ancient.

The Lords each held their right hand out towards the door. Aleksander led them in a recitation spoken in a language not even Blodwyn could recognise. Their words wove a spell, a spider's web of magic so great and so ancient that it was likely long forgotten to history aside from the Lords themselves.

A red flash seared the unsuspecting sisters' eyes. The runes blazed crimson—the ancient glyphs igniting with scarlet hellfire as the wards burned away. As the heat surged forward from the door, the youngest sister realised it would have incinerated any foe who tried to enter without first lowering the wards.

The Lords lowered their hands as if it had been nothing at all to them.

Aleksander turned. "Well," he said much too casually, "now that that's out of the way..." He waved a hand and the door opened with a leviathan scream that cut the sisters to their cores.

"Don't stand there gawking. In you go." Novak inclined his head to the doorway.

Roslin exchanged a look with her sisters as they moved towards the door, standing as close to one another as possible, entering the room as one. Goosebumps formed on Blodwyn's arms as she took in the high walls of the ancient chamber.

"What is this place? Why have you brought us here?" she asked, her eyes still moving around the room, searching for any other way in or out.

The Lords stepped in after them and Lucien smiled at her. "No nonsense as per usual, I see, even now. Straight to the point." He slithered up to her, his own cloak shadowing his face. She wondered why he wore it—did he even feel the cold? Did any of the Lords? "Where you are doesn't really matter. It's the why that's important."

Blodwyn rolled her eyes. "Well, are you going to tell us why we're here or do you plan to speak in convoluted riddles all day?"

Lucien threw back his head and laughed. "Another brilliant observation of yours."