Page 79 of The Other Omega

Farther down the table, I caught sight of Cedric, Samir and Matthias. I answered their reassuring nods with a small smile and tightened my hold on Alaric’s hand.

He glanced down at me, and I smiled up at him as we reached the doors.

We stepped into the corridor, and the doors closed behind us, softening the noise. I could still hear everyone striking the table together as we walked away.

Chapter 17

Elowen

Alaric took us farther into Vaelor House, still holding my hand. Lucien was on my other side, and the others were close behind.

Soon there were no longer any windows; even the carpets and tapestries disappeared. Everything around us was bare stone and heavy doors, guarded by soldiers in midnight-blue uniforms.

“There will be a security scan,” Darius said, pointing out a narrow panel beside the door. “Please remain still until it is complete.”

I nodded and stayed beside Alaric as a band of pale-blue light moved over us. I felt nothing, but I still held my breath until it passed. One of the guards checked the screen on the wall, gave Alaric a small nod and opened the door.

“Are we going deeper into the mountain?” I asked as we carried on down the passage.

“Yes,” Alaric said. “This passage connects the house to the inner city. From there, we can reach our private residence.”

Two more checkpoints followed. At the next one, we waited inside a small room with the doors closed behind us while another light moved across the floor and up the walls. The guards checked a second screen before letting us through.

“Each boundary is checked separately,” Darius said as I watched a guard inspect the results. “Recognition does not exempt anyone from the procedure.”

“That’s… very thorough.”

I moved a little closer to Alaric as the doors slowly slid apart and disappeared into the walls.

The air on the other side was cooler, and the smell of bread and coffee reached me almost immediately. I could hear people talking and footsteps ahead, but I’d barely stepped onto the wide walkway with Alaric before I stopped.

An entire city lay inside the mountain.

Buildings surrounded a huge open space, rising so high above us that I couldn’t see where they ended. More lay below us, their windows shrinking until I could barely make them out. People crossed bridges between the different levels, and enormous crystal towers stood in the gaps, glowing softly.

“Oh, my goodness.” I tightened my fingers around Alaric’s hand without meaning to. “I didn’t realise there was so much of it.”

“We can pause here if you wish,” he said, moving us out of the way of the doors.

He stayed beside me at the railing while the others gave me room to look.

The nearest tower started somewhere far below us and rose past rows of homes until a walkway overhead hid the rest of it. Soft silver-blue light spilled from it, stretching across the stone levels and shining through the windows. More towers stood farther away, lighting places that should’ve been completely dark.

It looked so much like moonlight that I tipped my head back, half expecting to find some enormous opening in the mountain above us.

There wasn’t one.

All I could see were more levels and bridges.

“The light comes from the atmospheric towers,” Lucien said. “They reproduce the natural cycle of daylight and darkness. What you see now is simulated moonlight.”

“All of this?” I looked across the city again, trying to take in how far the light reached. “I thought there must be an opening somewhere.”

“The mountain is enclosed above us. The towers also regulate the air and temperature throughout the populated areas.”

I felt a little breeze on my face, and a curtain moved through an open window across from us. I’d expected it to feel stuffy this far inside a mountain, but I’d already stopped thinking about the fact that we were underground.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, looking up at the tower again.