Page 40 of Dark as the Cursed Abyss

Farah matched her pace, every sense sharpened as they crossed the chamber. Her grip tightened on her axe, waiting—for a shift in the ground, for a hidden mechanism, for something to leap from the shadows.

Nothing came until they reached the statues. Chloe hesitated only a fraction of a second before reaching for the kiste. Farah stepped toward Artemis, her gaze locked on the calathus.

“On three?” Chloe said quietly.

Farah huffed. “When has anything we’ve done been that coordinated?”

Chloe’s lips twitched faintly. “Must you joke at a time like this?”

They moved anyway. The moment their hands closed around the weapons, the world broke. A deafening crack split through the chamber as the ground beneath them trembled violently. Stone groaned, fractures spidering across the walls and ceiling in jagged lines.

“Of course,” Farah snapped, wrenching the calathus free as debris began to fall. “Now it’s a trap.”

“Run!” Chloe shouted. But there was nowhere to run.

The chamber collapsed inward, massive chunks of stone crashing down around them as the air filled with dust and the roar of crumbling rock. Farah barely had time to register the surge of power that ripped through her arm from the weapon before the ground gave way entirely.

Light exploded. Blinding. Everlasting. They were falling again.

Farah hit marble hard enough to knock the air from her lungs for the second time that day. She rolled instinctively, clutching the calathus as she skidded to a stop across the polished floor. Sucking in a sharp breath, Farah blinked rapidly as the world came back into focus. They were no longer in the caves below the mountain.

They had been thrown—no, delivered—back into the castle itself, sprawled across the cold marble beneath towering columns and vaulted ceilings.

Farah pushed herself up onto her elbows, wincing as every muscle protested. A few feet away, Chloe lay in a similar state, the kiste still clutched in her hand. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Farah let out a breathless, disbelieving laugh. “Well,” she rasped, dragging herself to her feet. “That went…surprisingly well.”

Chloe glanced at her, chest still rising and falling rapidly, but there was something in her eyes now—something sharp. Something certain.

“We have them,” she said. Farah looked down at the weapon in her hand, feeling the faint hum of power beneath her fingers.

Weapons that could kill a god.

Above them, the castle loomed—unchanged, unaware, as if nothing beneath it had shifted at all.

Except everything had.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Farah

The piercing marble of the great hall was a silent witness to their arrival. Chloe sat on the floor, still cradling the weapon in her lap, staring blankly at the intricate designs etched into the floors beneath her. The weight of the moment settled in like a heavy fog. Her blood, dried dark and crusted against her stomach, stained the remnants of her clothes. The scent of iron clung to her, contrasting with the sterile air of the castle around them. The whole world seemed suspended in a moment of silence, an eerie stillness that she couldn’t shake.

She shifted slightly, feeling the tight pull of her stomach, the gash from the daimon’s claws still a faint scar across her abdomen. Yet, as her fingers brushed over the wound, she realized with a start that it was no longer there. Her stomach was smooth beneath her fingertips, the skin healed, as if the attack had never even happened.

Her breath caught in her throat.

She pulled her hand back, her eyes scanning the room as she sat up straighter. It was hard to even breathe in the overwhelming quiet, the enormity of what had happened still settling deep inside her chest. The trials were behind them now, the weapons secured, the danger they’d faced tangible in their aching limbs and the blood on their hands. But something else lingered, something far darker than the bloodstains or the monsters they’d fought.

Chloe’s gaze moved slowly around the great hall. The vaulted ceilings rose high above her, shadows stretching over the cold stone floors. A single, massive throne dominated the far side of the room, its carved stone back seemingly reaching toward the heavens themselves. Her eyes narrowed. It was there, on that throne, that she saw her aunt.

She hadn’t seen Avra since the second trial. Avra looked the same—regal, untouchable, her features calm, but there was something different in her gaze. The people who had been part of the first two trials flanked her on either side. Halius, the King of Hespali watched, stoic and cold. Acacius lingered toward the back of the dais, a shadow at her right hand. Markos, his usual curious expression unwavering. They were all here now, their faces unreadable, their presence overwhelming.

Avra lowered her hood slowly, her hair cascading down her back like a waterfall of moonlight. The soft clink of her armor as she walked toward them was the only sound in the chamber, a rhythmic echo that filled the vast emptiness between them.

Chloe’s pulse quickened. There was something about the way Avra moved—something almost predatory in her graceful steps. And yet, it was as though she was unwilling to cross an invisible line that kept her just out of reach of the weapons.

As she drew closer, Avra’s fingers twitched, her gaze flickering between Chloe and Farah, and the two weapons in their possession. It was a look of longing, a quiet ache, but when she stepped forward, she stopped, her hand hovering just inches away from them.