over and over again that my power is not limited to my physical size but to the breadth of my will, and it is my will that you should live.” She stepped forward again, shoving her hand through the swirl of clouds that was all that remained of the Lord of Storms’ chest. “Accept the oath.”
The League Commander glared hard at her, and then bowed his head just slightly. The pressure vanished immediately, and Josef was suddenly glad of the stone around his legs. If the rock hadn’t been holding him up, he would have fallen flat in shock at the sight of what happened next.
As soon as the pressure vanished, the Lord of Storms dissolved into a swirling mass of cloud, and then the whole valley went stark white as a bolt of lightning the size of a tree trunk crashed down from the clear sky and struck Miranda, lighting her up from the inside. The bolt lasted less than a second, and then Miranda fell forward, collapsing face-first into the trampled snow.
The moment she hit, the stone holding Josef fell away, and he collapsed beside her, staring at her unmoving body until Gin’s body blocked his view. The ghosthound circled his mistress, snapping at Josef’s legs until he moved them. The hound nudged the girl with his nose and began to whine. When the Spiritualist didn’t move, the whining grew louder until Gin raised his head with a howl so full of fear and loss that even Josef’s spirit-deaf ears caught its meaning. Instinctively, he turned away from the mourning ghosthound and looked instead at the place where, only seconds earlier, the Lord of Storms had stood with his arms open, waiting for death.
The spot was now empty, and though he sniffed the air, he caught no hint of ozone. Suddenly exhausted, he leaned back and gazed up at the Dead Mountain, silently begging for Eli to hurry.
Overhead, unseen, the sky shuddered and began to bulge inward.
CHAPTER
21
Nico and Eli were running, lungs pumping as they charged up the slope of the Dead Mountain. The jump had taken them to the first ledge. After that, Nico had said something about the demon’s influence being too large to risk another trip through the shadows, and they’d decided to go the rest of the way on foot.
Eli was beginning to wish they’d taken their chances in the dark. He thought he’d remembered the feel of the Dead Mountain, but now that he was back, his memory felt like a rosy portrait. The cold, the stillness, the unrelenting emptiness of the air around him pressed like a lead weight on his mind, making him want to curl into a ball and never get up again, but that was nothing compared to the fear.
The panic had hit him as soon as they’d left the shadows, forcing him to take a few of their precious minutes to collect himself before going on. The fear leached his strength and gnawed on his bones, weighing him down until he was sure he couldn’t take another step. He would have stopped several times over if not for Nico. She floated ahead of him, an inky spot blacker than the mountain’s stone, her white hands tugging him whenever he fell too far behind.
Eventually, the prolonged exposure dulled the panic’s edge, and Eli began to notice his surroundings. Or, rather, his lack of surroundings. On his first visit there’d been a meager town of cultists, those foolish humans who actually wanted demonseeds inside them. Now that was all gone. Buildings, people, everything had vanished without a trace. Only the flat stretch of ground and the cave leading into the mountain’s side remained to show that Eli and Nico were in the right place. Eli wondered briefly what had happened to it all before shoving the thought out of his mind. He didn’t actually want to know.
They ran across the flat stretch of stone where the town had stood and entered the cave, picking up speed as they began to climb. The farther they went, the thicker the dark became. Thanks to her flawless darksight, Nico moved the same as always, but Eli was forced to slow down, feeling the ground with his feet. Finally, Nico gave up and went back, shoving her hands into his and pulling him behind her like a wagon as she ran up the sloping tunnel.
For all the changes, some parts of the journey were the same. The return to the light, for example, was just as abrupt as Eli remembered. One moment he was stumbling like a blind man through the tunnel behind Nico; the next he was shielding his eyes and gripping the ledge to keep from plummeting down the steep cliffs.
They had emerged from the tunnel high up the mountain at the narrow path that led up to the demon’s prison at the peak. Below them, the Sleeping Mountains stretched off in all directions, their enormous peaks small and almost delicate from this great height. Though they were almost at their destination, the way forward made Eli’s head spin. The path from the cave wound along the back of a ridge with plunging cliffs on either side. There was nothing to guard against a fall, and in some places the stony path was little more than a foot wide. If any wind had dared to blow across the Dead Mountain, the way would have been completely impassable. But there were no winds here, not even the distant sound of them. Only the Dead Mountain’s heavy silence, the view, and the long, long drop.
Mindful of their time limit, Eli gritted his teeth and forced himself to go on, dragging his feet in tiny, cautious steps along the narrow ridge. He kept his eyes on the path, never daring to look down, and eventually his pace picked up. He was really starting to think they’d make it when he realized he was alone.
Eli looked around the empty path in alarm, hoping frantically that Nico hadn’t fallen before he spotted her all the way back at the tunnel’s exit. She was pressed against the mountain, her hands clapped over her mouth, yellow eyes wide with horror. For a moment Eli wondered dumbly if she was scared of heights, but then he saw where her terrified eyes were staring.
She was looking down, all the way down the cliffs to the enormous valley that cut through the Sleeping Mountains like a scar. The valley ran north in an unnaturally straight line from the Dead Mountain’s base. Its flat floor was riddled with craters and rubble, all that remained of the mountains that had once stood in its path. And though he couldn’t see it from this distance, Eli knew that straight road of a valley ended at the slopes of the Shaper Mountain itself. A lasting reminder of the Demon’s last and most successful attempt to take out the only spirit that could imprison the horror he’d unleashed on the world.
With a silent curse, Eli turned on his heel and picked his way as fast as possible back to her across the ridge. “Nico,” he whispered, taking her hand. “Come on. We have to go.”
He might have been talking to the mountain itself for all the good it did. Nico didn’t budge, even when he touched her. She stood as still as the stone under her feet, staring at the scar like she’d seen a ghost.
“Nico,” Eli said again, more firmly this time. He tugged her hand.
“I did this,” she whispered, her voice so quiet he almost didn’t hear it.
Eli closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “That was a long time ago, Nico, and it wasn’t your fault.”
“I did this,” she said again, louder. “There were mountains there, and I ate them.” Her voice raised to a wail. “I killed them!”
“Nico!” Eli shouted, grabbing her shoulders. “That wasn’t you. That was the Daughter of the Dead Mountain. That was a slave, Nico. A slave with no choice and no mind of her own. You’re free, remember? You won your freedom when you beat the demon. Remember what happened up by the bandit camp. You won. You have no master but yourself. Now come on, we need you.” He dropped his grip on her shoulders and reached down to gently touch her fingers instead, pressing them between his own. “Please?”
Nico shivered as though he’d dunked her in ice water, and the spell was broken. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, pulling away. She began to stride forward only to stop a few steps later. “Thank you,” she said, looking over her shoulder.
“You’re welcome,” Eli said, hurrying after her. “Now let’s go. If we’re not back by the time Josef is done thrashing the Lord of Storms, I’m going to have to listen to him and Miranda whining about waiting on us. Frankly, I’d rather be eaten by a demon.”
Nico smiled at that. She waited until he reached her, and then they jogged together up the ridge path toward the steep switchback trail to the peak. When they reached it, they began to run full out, climbing the steep path as fast as they could until, at last, they stood before the entrance to the cave at the very top.
Eli stopped and bent over, clutching his knees as he panted. Nico wasn’t winded at all, but she stopped as well, staring at the wall of darkness that waited beyond the cave’s mouth. No light penetrated the shadows beyond the stone lip. Instead, the blackness seemed to press outward, lapping at the edges of the door like overflowing water.
