Cursed Hearts | ATEEZ

036

There was nothing but darkness behind the wall of stone, though, somehow, the space around me seemed enormous; painfully silent and so vast that the single flame from my torch was unable to reach any of the walls. I was about to take another step into the tomb when a sudden growl, a warning, cut through the heavy silence. I froze, feeling my blood run cold as the low rumble shook the ground.

The vibrations echoed in my very bones as I took a slow step back, only to halt as the light from my torch began to flicker, my eyes widening in panic as it died out and the veil of darkness around me deepened, "No," I whimpered, hissing as I accidentally dropped it to the ground when another sound split the silence.

Claws scraped against stone as something, something big, crossed the room, the sound making the hairs on my arms stand up as it came closer and closer.

I was about to take another step backwards when, suddenly, a wave of flames washed across the walls all around me and several hundred torches flickered to life, bathing the room in golden light and revealing the beast in front of me; a beautiful woman with coal-covered eyes, wearing a turquoise and golden headdress with an emblem at the front in the shape of a cobra, a uraeus, native to Sector 6 and Cairo, ready to strike.

She was enormous, I realized with a sinking heart. Enormous, winged, and with the body of a lioness. She was a sphinx, and not like the stone sculpture outside in the desert next to the three pyramids, but one of blood and fresh, breathing and snarling and staring right at me.

A shaky breath left my lips as she moved closer, her golden jewelry clattering against fur and wings, glittering in the firelight from the torches, her long tail dragging across the cold stone beneath us.

"I see you found your way in the darkness," the sphinx purred. I gulped as her melodious voice caused a shiver to run down my back. "Did the shadows perhaps reveal anything to you, Chosen One, or did they conceal, hmm?" she mused, cocking a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me as she tilted her head slightly and came to a halt less than a meter away from my shaking form.

But I was at a loss for words, more shaken and shocked by the creature currently standing in front of me than I had been by the phoenixes, by the ninjas, by whatever had been hunting me in the forests of Moscow, my mouth opening in an attempt to answer though I found no words.

"Have you not been told that only the truth will be accepted as payment, champion?" she growled, baring her teeth at me as she glared down at me, causing me to wince slightly at the tone. "Withholding information is the same as lying," she whispered, my eyes widening as she repeated the same words I had once told the King of Autumn. "How did you-?"

"Oh, but the questions are mine to ask and mine only, special one," the sphinx purred, "I will let you have your turn once you've proven your worth, your wit."

I furrowed my brows at the name, the sight making her lips pull back into a disarming smile, fangs bared as she chuckled, "I love riddles," blinking slowly as she paused for a moment and took me in, purring, "And to make it out of the darkness again you will have to offer me the right answers."

I simply stood there, craning my neck in order to look her in the eyes as I nodded slowly, unsure as to what other choices I had then to simply agree. I was absolutely powerful compared to the enormous beast and her face, so human compared to the rest of her form, was alarmingly disarming as she offered me a bright smile and clicked her tongue.

"I have my suspicions as to how you found this place, how you got here, Special One. The answer to this riddle is also the one to blame, a part of the answers in search of which lead you here, to me."

She leaned slightly closer to me, her hot breath fanning my face as the golden cobra atop her headdress caught the light, "Never resting, never still; moving silently from hill to hill; it does not walk, run or trot; all is cool where it is not."