“Hey, Kiera!” Potter called out from behind me. “What are we doing with the wolf man?”
“Bring him with you,” I said. “But don’t let him leave your side.”
“Easier said than done in all this fog,” I heard Luke say.
But I didn’t stop, I just followed those voices.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Through the tunnels I went, not knowing where I was going or what direction I was heading. It didn’t seem to matter to me. For some reason I trusted those innocent-sounding voices. I could hear Potter, Luke, and Seth behind me as they followed the sounds of my footsteps echoing back down through the tunnels. Could they hear the voices? I doubted it or they would have asked me about them. No, these children, whoever they were, were only talking to me – guiding me.
I don’t know for how long I followed the voices through the labyrinth of tunnels, but eventually the fog started to thin out and eventually evaporate. There was a dim, orange light at the end of the tunnel, and I sped up.
“Where are you taking us?” Potter called out.
Ignoring him, I raced forward towards the light. Stumbling out of the tunnel, I gasped in a mouthful of air, glad to be free of the suffocating smog. Blinking in the light that now bathed me, I looked ahead. The others stumbled into the light and coughed and sputtered as they gasped in lungfuls of fresh air.
We stood in a narrow valley which ran between two vast cliffs that towered above us on either side. But unlike the red rock that seemed to make up so much of The Hollows, the cliffs were a dull grey as if they had had their colour sucked from them. The sky above us was a black void. There were no twinkling stalagmites here. The orange glow that illuminated the valley came from the ground, which was covered in a similar type of moss I had seen back at the resistance camp. Just like the ground there, this was spongy, like a luxuriant carpet. At the opposite end of the valley, I could see what appeared to be four giant pillars sculpted into the rocks. Set between these pillars was a rusty-looking door that stretched up for as far as the eye could see.
I looked at the others and said,” The Dust Palace?”
“I guess,” Luke shrugged.
“What are we waiting for?” Seth barked, keen to get going and have his curse lifted, if that was his true reason for wanting to get inside there.
“Watch him,” I said to Luke and Potter, as I set off across the valley.
The others followed at a distance, Seth sandwiched between Luke and Potter. A cool breeze fused with sand meandered about us, and our wings rippled. The sound of the children laughing had faded. It was as if they had led me this far, but had now disappeared, leaving me alone to find my own way into the Dust Palace.
Before the giant door stood several stone steps. Placing my foot on the first, I looked back at the others as they joined me.
“Are you sure about this?” Potter asked, taking me to one side so that we were out of earshot of the others.
“I’m not sure of anything anymore,” I whispered looking up into his dead, black eyes.
“Does that include me?” he asked.
Not knowing what lay ahead on the other side of the door and fearing this could be our last moments together, I said, “I do love you.” Then, I headed up the steps.
As I climbed them, I could see that the building set into the rocks wasn’t made of stone at all, but of smouldering ash. It glimmered red as if on fire, and wispy trails of smoke seeped from the cracks that covered it. I could hear a hissing sound as if the palace was on fire, or at least smouldering. Heat radiated from the building, but oddly I felt cold. I reached the giant door that towered high above me and could see it was coloured brown with scorch marks, as if at some time in the distant past it had been set on fire. The door was open, just enough for me to step through.
The others joined me on the top step and there was an eerie silence between us. Not one of us said anything, and we all shared a nervous glance. Even Potter seemed to have lost that cocky look of his, the arrogance melting away before the Dust Palace. None us had to speak, there were no words that could explain the seriousness of what was about to happen – the gravity of the decision I was going to make on the other side of the door we now stood before.
Every step I had taken since arriving at The Ragged Cove had been leading me here, to the Dust Palace, the home of the Elders, where I would decide the fate of two races. Both good, both bad, both capable of true greatness, if only they had someone to show them the light.
I looked at Luke and his face was ashen, gaunt, and tired. Potter took a cigarette from his pocket, stuck it in the corner of his mouth, then spat it out as if thinking better of it. Seth stared at the crack in the door, his eyes burning bright.
There was only the four of us left; only the four of us had made it this far. Two Vampyrus, a Lycanthrope, and one half-breed. An unlikely quartet, one of which was a traitor. Who was it and how many of us would leave the Dust Palace alive?
Not knowing the answer to my own questions, I slipped between the gap in the door and entered the Dust Palace.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
A long, stone corridor lay before us. The walls were lined with a thousand or more candles. As the last of us stepped into the Palace, the door slammed shut behind us and a thousand flames flickered, casting shadows up the ashen walls. There was only silence and it was louder than any sound I had ever heard. The four of us stood side by side and looked straight ahead. My heart was racing so fast inside my chest that I thought it might just explode at any moment. Without saying a word, I took a deep breath and stepped forward.
The floor was made of burning coals and they hissed and spat with every step I took. But my shoes didn’t smoulder or perish; in fact, like the rest of me, my feet felt cold, as if I had just plunged them into a tub full of icy water.
The four of us moved forward, not one of us daring to say a word. We came to the end of the corridor and found ourselves in a vast chamber that didn’t look to dissimilar to the inside of an ancient cathedral. Ash-covered pillars stretched up into the ceiling which looked as if it had been constructed from hundreds of seething, wooden beams. It was as if the whole palace was slowly smouldering like the embers of a dying campfire. Just like the many cathedrals I had visited, this had an altar that was on a raised platform. It was supported on four raised legs, as if the altar itself was set inside some kind of smaller temple. Before it stood four robed figures and their faces were covered with hoods.
“Welcome to our home at last, Kiera Hudson,” one of them said, and although they were the size of adults, the voice was that of a little girl, no older than six years.
With goose flesh running up my spine at the sound of the Elder’s voice, I knew that it was the same as the voices I‘d heard in the tunnels. I looked at the four of them and because their faces were shrouded, I couldn’t tell which one of them had spoken.
“You have done well to have come so far,” one of them said, but it was a different voice this time, the voice of a small boy. “You have seen much, but you have been blind too.”
“Blind?” I whispered.
“Oh, Kiera,” another of them said from beneath their hood in a child’s voice. “Can’t you see what you have done?”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“You’ve led our enemy – Elias Munn – into our home,” one of them said.
I glanced along the line at Potter, Luke, and Seth, then, turning to face the Elders I said. “I’ve seen who this Elias Munn is,” I told them. “You are right, he is amongst us and his name is…”
“Shhh,” one of the Elders said, then giggled in a childish way. “Let’s see if you have seen right, Kiera Hudson.”
There was a pause of silence before one of the Elders said in a small voice, “Will Elias Munn please step forward.”
I shot a glance down the line and none of them moved. I looked at all of their faces as they stared straight ahead at the Elders. None of them seemed to show any emotion, their faces passive, lifeless.
With my blood beginning to boil, I stood in front of Seth and hissed, “Go on, reveal yourself. I know it’s you.”
Jack Seth just stared back at me, his eyes gleaming yellow and crazy as ever.
“Tell them that it is you,” I demanded, and tugged at his arm. If he wasn’t going to step forward, then I would drag him before the Elders myself.
Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw someone move. With my heart aching in my chest, I watched Potter take a step forward.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“No!” I gasped, turning to face Potter. “Tell me it isn’t true.”
Potter just looked at me with his dead, black eyes. His face was devoid of all emotion.
Taking hold of him, I shook him and screamed, “It’s not you Potter! Tell me so! Talk to me!”
Then, without taking his eyes off mine, he opened his mouth as a thin, black line of blood ran over his lips, down his chin, and splattered onto his naked chest.
“What’s going on?” I gasped in confusion. And it was as I looked at the blood running down his body that I saw the fingers sticking out of the hole in the centre of his chest. Clutched between those fingers, was something red and black, and it pulsed in and out.
Not understanding what I was seeing, I watched the hand disappear again.
“Potter?” I groaned as he slumped forward into my arms to reveal my mother standing behind him. She stood clutching Potter’s heart in her fist.
“Oh, my god, what have you done?” I mumbled, still unable to comprehend what was happening.
“He was in the way,” she smiled down at me as I lowered Potter to the ground.
“In the way of what?” I breathed, my mind still trying to make sense of what was happening.
“The person who really loves you,” she said, dropping Potter’s heart to the floor. “A good mother knows who is right for her daughter and it wasn’t Potter. Elias Munn is who you are destined to love.”
“What are you talking about?” I screamed at her, my mind now realising that she had killed Potter so I would be free to love Elias Munn.