Chapter Sixteen

"You've been acting strangely since we entered Xandria."

"Have you seen this place? Not exactly a butterfly garden."

I sat with my arms folded on my knees, body hunched over as I fought to ignore the sounds of the voices whispering and wailing around me. Everytime something squelched or rippled, I'd eye the walls, waiting for more of those demonic spirits to pull out of the spongy material.

I still felt frustratingly shaken by the weird vision the realm had given me. Akin had told me this place would do that, pray on anyone who entered and toy with their mind to torture them. It was how the realm was built in order to punish the wrongdoers of the realm. And I could feel the aftereffects in the way my muscles felt weaker, my heart was still pounding, my senses on alert, yet still feeling dulled at the same time. It was like being trapped in one of those nightmares where no matter how fast you ran, it felt like your legs were made of cinderblocks.

And no matter how hard I fought to conceal it all, Yiuwa was seeing right through it. He'd held my hand the whole way, and some inner voice scolded me for it. I was almost as old as time itself, yet I needed a grown male to hold my hand through hell. And even worse, I needed that. I squeezed his hand the whole way, needing to feel him beside me, to feel protected. Even if I could protect my own damn self.

"Rowan, can't you give me a straight answer for once?" Yiuwa asked softly, glancing at Hannibal, who had also stopped with us to charge the orb in his palms. Hannibal thankfully appeared to recognize our need for privacy and didn't appear to be eavesdropping as he focused his energy on charging the orb.

"I did," I replied dismissively, "We should be getting closer to the tablet. Once we find it, we'll have to review as much of it as possible. Something tells me we shouldn't take it out of Xandria. If the ones in Yomi were sealed to the realm, this one could be too. And photos will probably be impossible too. So you'll need to read it quickly." Yiuwa frowned.

"I know," he answered slowly, "I understand the gravity of the situation. My realm ended because of our failure to take this threat seriously. I don't need you to tell me that." I nodded, but didn't say anything. I definitely hadn't just rambled to change his focus from me to the task at hand. A lie that clearly wasn't working, because Yiuwa was still staring at me intently. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder, and gods, it felt like he was supporting me, like I would fall over if he hadn't touched me. I felt as if I were weakening the longer we stayed here.

"Rowan--"

"Can we just focus on getting the tablet? Please," I tacked on. Yiuwa pressed his lips into a firm line, then took his hand away and I felt the loss as a physical ache in my chest. He turned away, then cursed when his phone dropped from his pocket and fell to the mushy ground. He leaned over to pick it up, and a second later, a tentacle seemed to morph out of the ground and snatch his wrist.

"Shit!" Yiuwa cursed, making Hannibal jerk his head up. Yiuwa yanked his hand back, but the tentacle dragged up with it. I grabbed onto the tentacle and sent a blast of magic through it, slicing it in half. It made the same sound you'd hear of a squealing pig before vanishing back into the ground.

I looked up to see Yiuwa staring at the ground, blinking rapidly. I frowned.

"Yiuwa?" I asked. He wasn't moving, barely breathing, just blinking like he wasn't sure what he was seeing. Then suddenly he jerked his head up, letting out a gasp. He looked around, like he had no idea where he was, until his eyes landed on me.

"Rowan?" He managed, reaching up to touch my face. The warmth of his palm against my cheek, the slight tremble there, broke something in me and I reached up, placing my hand over his as I stared at him, stared into those confused startled yellow eyes.

"It's the magic," Hannibal murmured, making us look up, "Hallucinations are common here as they're a way to torture the souls. I'm afraid it won't just happen once or twice either. But it should stop by the time we reach the artifact room." I nodded, then looked back at Yiuwa, who slowly turned his head so he could look at me again.

"It seemed so real," he whispered, his thumb brushing my cheek in a tender stroke. I closed my eyes, the touch sending a little thrill of excitement through me.

"I know," I said without thinking. Yiuwa pursed his lips as I opened my eyes to look at him.

"You saw something too. Before. It's why you're acting differently."

"It doesn't matter. It's over--"

"I saw my sister," Yiuwa said, making me fall silent as I stared at him, watching red trace around his eyes, eyes that grew watery with pain, "I mean... I knew it wasn't her. She would never... She would never blame me for what I did and I know that, I do. It's just... There's still the fear there that she's angry somewhere." I swallowed.

"What did you do?" I asked softly. Yiuwa's lower lip trembled, his yellow eyes overflowing with tears.

"I didn't mean to. There was just... I shouldn't have shot myself up before battle. I knew it made it harder for my Beast, but I was so tired of fighting it. I needed something to numb it, to make it all go away. I didn't know it was her, Rowan. I didn't know..." He choked off and ducked his head down. I had no idea what possessed me to scoot closer to him, to wrap my arms around him. He curled into me as if seeking protection, and I gave it to him like he gave it to me. I laid my head on his back as he wept, his big body trembling in my arms.

"I know," I said softly, recognizing that pain, that guilt, having seen it and felt it so many times before, "It wasn't your fault, Yiuwa. And it wasn't your Beast's fault."

"I shouldn't have shot up," Yiuwa argued helplessly, "I shouldn't have done it in the first place, but it made it so much easier to handle the Beast. It muted everything, numbed everything, so it stayed quiet. He liked it, and so did I. It was supposed to help."

"I know."

"I needed to do it. I needed it. Without it, I got sick. Without it--"

"You got chills," Hannibal said, making us look up as he stared down at the orb in his palms, "Without it, you were raw and exposed. It was much easier to stick a needle in your arm and pretend everything wasn't as hard as it was. It was better than facing the truth." He glanced at us, then looked away again.

"We should get going," he said gruffly. I nodded, then looked at Yiuwa, who sucked in a shuddering breath. He wiped at his eyes, rising to his feet with me. Without realizing it, my hands had slid down his arms and our hands laced together. He looked down at our hands together, then lifted his eyes to meet mine. He leaned in and touched his lips to my forehead, then touched his to mine.

He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. All I could do was swallow thickly before we continued on.

Thankfully, it didn't take much longer to get there. Within an hour, we were standing outside a large wooden door with wrought iron castings. Hannibal lowered the orb and waved his hand over the door, which slid open a crack with a wet noise. He pushed the door the rest of the way open and revealed what looked like an episode of hoarders.

Unlike the rest of this realm, the walls and floor and ceiling looked like plain barn wood with cathedral ceilings and heavy support beams, upon which sat more stuff. Everything was disorganized and chaotic with moldy boxes overflowing, ancient chests with broken hinges. The smell wasn't as awful as the realm outside, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. There was definitely something dead hiding among the carnage of ancient cursed objects.

"Try not to touch anything," Hannibal said as he closed the door behind us, throwing a latch down, "This stuff is cursed or enchanted. We don't know what all of them do. We're just looking for the tablet. It should be somewhere in back among the older stuff. As chaotic as it looks, there is an organization here. The further back you go, the older the stuff is." We nodded. Though, I didn't see this organization he was talking about.

We basically had to wade through the room of things. I passed a golden chest with images of demons carved on the top, boxes full of magazines from 1950s Japan, a Korean printing block, Chinese calligraphy set, a Russian doll set, and so on and so forth. It was such a wide range of things and junk. The fact that any of this was enchanted or cursed seemed outrageous.

"This is incredible," Yiuwa whispered, making me glance at him with an arched brow as he broke away from me to admire a painting of a widow mourning over a well, "This is beautiful. Where is all this from?"

"All over the universe," Hannibal said as he looked around, moving things carefully, "Some of it came from the mortal realm, some from other realms, and so on."

"What are all these things, though? What is this?" Yiuwa asked, pointing to an old typewriter.

"A typewriter," I replied, walking over to study the thing before frowning at something that was underneath of it, "They were used before computers mainly. Now it's more of a fashion statement..." My voice trailed as I lifted the typewriter to spy a large heavy book underneath. I set the typewriter aside and picked up the book, blowing dust off the sides and the pages before flipping through it.

"Amazing," Yiuwa breathed, still in awe. It made sense considering none of this stuff existed in his universe. While he was busy gushing over the junk and Hannibal dug through the chaos, I scanned the book with curiosity. It was a book of enchantments. Things from how to enchant objects to stay warm or stay cold, enchantments on clothing to suit body size, enchantments of wealth and luck.

My eyes fell across the luck page, and I bit my bottom lip. For a full moment, I debated turning the page to look into it. Why bother? I'd been alive for thousands and thousands of years. Removing the curse on me was impossible. I'd talked to wizards and witches, mages and sorcerers alike. I'd traveled to realms people had never even heard of. In the end, I'd never found anything.

But I hadn't been able to look in Xandria until now. I avoided Atlantis because of Atlan. And it had been destroyed and sent back to the Source before I could investigate. Now was finally my chance to see if maybe, just maybe, there was a secret in the pages of this book.

I started to turn the page when I caught something out the corner of my eye. I looked up to see Yiuwa lifting a statue of a baseball player off the top of a pile of books and tomes. He appeared engrossed in the statue itself as opposed to the fact that the tower he'd lifted it off of was teetering to the side. I cursed, slamming the book shut and lunging over to Yiuwa, grabbing him by the arm and yanking him out of the way as the tower went toppling over.

"Shit," Hannibal muttered, picking his way over to help us. Yiuwa looked at me sheepishly and I shook my head at him, tucking the book up under my arm and double checking to make sure Yiuwa was alright. In the process, my eyes fell to the floor and I found myself staring down at a tablet that looked exactly like the ones we'd seen in Yomi.

"The tablet," I said, kneeling down to pick it up. Yiuwa sighed in relief, setting aside the statue in his hands to pick up the tablet. Hannibal came over as Yiuwa set it out on a nearby desk after moving a stack of Swedish magazines. Yiuwa cocked his head and Hannibal came over to hold the orb so it was easier to read. I watched Yiuwa's yellow eyes flit across the stone surface. I followed his eyes, but couldn't make sense of what language was written down, just that some things were mentioned more than one, if the combination of similar symbols was anything to base it on.

"Are you getting anything?" I asked. Yiuwa pressed his lips into a firm line, meaning he wasn't entirely sure.

"It's difficult to tell," he said after a moment, squinting as if that would help him read better, "It says... The chant cannot be done until a certain time."

"Certain time? What, like full moon?" Hannibal asked. Yiuwa nodded slowly.

"But this is more complicated, more specific. It must be done under the light of the highest sun," he recited carefully, "From the lips of a winged songbird, with the blood of misery upon his lips, the skies upon him. And then it... Shit."

"What?" I demanded. Yiuwa shook his head, scanning the tablet over a second time.

"There's no chant written here," he muttered. I looked at him in disbelief and Hannibal just looked bored by the whole endeavor, making Yiuwa look at him in confusion.

"My whole existence was dictated by prophecy," Hannibal answered, "They're never fucking straight forward. Not the Source's job to write us an instruction manual."

"Now would've been fucking great," I answered dryly, "Considering the Source itself could end. You'd think it'd be a little more self-preserving." Yiuwa shrugged.

"The Source doesn't think as we do. It's impartial. If it's death is to happen, it happens and the Source accepts it as fate."

"How noble," I deadpanned. Hannibal made a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a scoff before he stepped back, scanning the room one last time before looking at us.

"We should probably go soon if you can't figure anything else out about the tablet. The longer we're down here, the more likely we are to become targets," he said. Yiuwa nodded, pushing the tablet aside with a grim stare.

"There is nothing else on the tablet, aside from what I've read. It appears either it is unfinished, or the chant was hidden somewhere else," he admitted. Hannibal didn't look too pleased with that, but he said nothing more as he went to the door. I followed behind Yiuwa, glancing one last time at the useless tablet that could've caused anyone else to die just to look at it. A waste of fucking time, if you ask me, but then, at least now we knew a bit more about the way Tristan was supposed to recite the chant. It was just a matter of what the hell was the chant, and what the hell we just read meant.

With that in mind, Hannibal opened the door and led us out of the room. Once again we were plunged into the gooey porous tunnels that looked like someone's entrails, inside and out. The voices also returned, stronger this time, angry and unyielding, clearly lashing out at our presence among them. Emotions permeated the air like a thick humid cloud, making it difficult to breath. Jealousy, rage, sorrow, agony.

We were halfway down the tunnel when I felt Yiuwa reach for my hand, only to bump into the book, making me curse under my breath.

"What is that?" Yiuwa asked. This time, Hannibal stopped and turned to look at me.

"I didn't even realize I still had it," I muttered in confusion, looking down at the book. Yiuwa scowled at the title.

"Beasts and Monstrosities?" He asked. I frowned.

"Are we reading the same thing?"

"No," Hannibal deadpanned, walking over and taking the book from me, and I had an insane urge to snatch it back, almost violently, and he actually had to yank it from my grasp, "I'm reading Ten Ways to Go Back in Time. This book is cursed. You see what you want to see within its pages. When in actuality, it's probably just a book of fucking summoning spells and more curses."

Damn it. I couldn't believe I'd fallen for that. I knew the things in there were cursed, but what harm came from ever reading a book? I suddenly felt like banging my head against a wall. Thankfully, Hannibal had the book now and was backtracking toward the artifact room. In the process, Yiuwa stuck close to me and when he went for my hand again, I let him. I still had this uncontrollable urge to go after the book again, this desperation to see if the pages really truly did contain something to get rid of my curse, but I quickly squashed any voice in my head that told me such things.

My curse was permanent. It was attached to my soul. Just like the Beast curse. It couldn't be cured, couldn't be banished, nothing. I was trapped in a world of misfortune.

I kept the chant up in my head as we backtracked and found the room once more. Only instead of going inside this time, Hannibal opened the door and chucked the book inside so it knocked something over, then slammed the door shut before I could go after it. Once the door was shut, it felt like something in me had broken, a wave of relief following it when I realized the curse was broken from the book. I nodded my thanks and Hannibal inclined his head before holding up his light, then going still as he stared at something behind us.

"Hannibal--"

"Am I hallucinating, or is there actually something watching us over there?" He demanded. Yiuwa spun around, but he couldn't see through the darkness beyond the orb's light. I, however, saw the image of the creature perfectly. It was massive, its spindy spider-like body filling up the tunnel in front of us, stretched pasty white skin over bony limbs. It had claws as big as my arms and an eyeless face with a huge mouth full of a thousand razor sharp teeth. It was fucking hideous, especially as it drooled and the pinkish red goo dripped down to the ground that seemed to cease its pulsing.

"No," I said slowly, not taking my eyes off the thing as it growled low in its throat, "No, it's actually there."

"Oh good," Hannibal stated, "Then fucking run." Without another word, Hannibal ran at the thing with the orb. The creature screeched like it was being burned and scrambled up onto the ceiling, hissing and swatting at us as we ran by underneath of it. We took off down the tunnel, and I glanced back to see the thing land on the floor and launch after us.

"What the hell is that?" I demanded.

"Xios," Hannibal called back to me as he ran, "They're the guardians of Mialosk. Unfortunately, they're fucking blind as sin and can't tell the difference between us and the dead. All it knows is that we're in the fucking way, so run like hell until we find the exit!" I wasn't going to argue with that, especially when the thing screamed and nearly splintered my eardrums. I gasped, clasping my hands over my ears for the remainder of the scream. Adrenaline kicked me into overdrive and I took off, running beside Yiuwa as we tailed Hannibal through the tunnels.

While the trip to the artifact room felt very deliberate in the choice of tunnels, this trip back was insane and chaotic. When a new tunnel showed up, we darted down it. However, even though we were running, the thing was keeping up with no problem. Every so often it would swat at us, almost nailing me in the back a couple times before we pulled ahead.

The running wasn't working, and I could tell Hannibal was beginning to see that. His teeth were gnashing as he attempted to come up with a plan. And as soon as I noticed it, and we rounded a corner, there was a pained shriek, making us glance over our shoulders to see the ground open up and swallow the Xios, who disappeared in a fashion that would've been comical if the thing wasn't so goddamn creepy.

"What the hell was that?" I demanded as we ran.

"No idea," Hannibal answered, "Consider it some good fucking luck, because this fucking light is about to go out again and we're almost there, so there's no time to stop!"

"Tell me where to go," I said suddenly, pulling up beside Hannibal, making him scowl at me and I met his eyes, "I can see where we're going. Just tell me where to go. I'll let you know if we come to any turns." Hannibal appeared surprised, then nodded.

"Go ahead until you see two tunnels going off to the right and left. Go right. There's going to be a slight incline," he added. I nodded and moved ahead. We slowed down, but not by much. There was still a distant angry shriek of a Xios out for blood. I followed Hannibal's instructions, and thank fuck we were already on the right track, because when we hit the incline, the fucking orb went out.

"Shit," Hannibal cursed, shaking the thing before shoving it in his pocket, "It's out. Rowan, where are you?"

"Two feet in front of you," I informed him, then glanced back at Yiuwa, who was looking around blindly and for some stupid reason, I held my hand out to him and when he caught it, he looked relieved, "Right here, Yiuwa. Hannibal, reach out to your right. Yiuwa's standing right there." Hannibal obeyed and found Yiuwa's jacket, snagging it in his fist.

"Okay, let's go," I said, turning around and leading us quickly up the incline.

"There's four tunnels up ahead," I said after a while, watching the pulsing tunnels come into view at the top of the incline, "Which one?"

"Take the third one. It's going to look like there's a dead end, but there's a tunnel to the left and right, take the one to the left. I know it'll look weird directionally, but just follow that pattern specifically," Hannibal commanded.

"Got it," I answered and led us down the third tunnel. Sure enough, Hannibal's instructions were correct. At the dead end, I took a left, even though it looked like we'd just hit the second tunnel earlier on. We didn't bisect any other tunnels, and the further we walked on, the more the voices seemed to soften. And it was when the fucking vault door came into view when I finally relaxed. I led Hannibal to the door and put him in front of it so he could knock out the tune that would indicate it was us coming back.

There was the loud sound of cranking and whirring gears as Zetnos opened the vault. And following the sounds was the shriek of a Xios, making me swing around and look up. At one end of the tunnel, the Xios was crawling toward us in a way that reminded me of that bitch from the Grudge movies and when I heard snarling, I spun to see that the other end of the hall was spitting up what appeared to be more spirits, all of whom were snarling and hissing.

"We have company," I ground out.

"Fantastic," Hannibal muttered.

A second later, the vault swung open and Hannibal dove out first. Yiuwa and I followed next. I had just gotten through the door when something sharp slashed at my leg and I cursed. I almost hit the floor, except Yiuwa caught me just as Zetnos swung the door shut on the Xios's claw. The Xios squealed and shrieked in agony. A second later, the claw snapped off and shriveled up before turning to dust.

"Baby!" Akin threw his arms around Hannibal's neck as a greeting.

"Shit, Rowan!" Yiuwa dropped to the ground with me and I looked down to see that the claw hadn't just sliced into my leg, but fucking butchered it. Mutilated meat ran in four long claw marks down my leg, exposing bone and blood. I sucked in deep shaking breathes as Yiuwa held me in his lap and Akin left Hannibal to run to me while Hannibal phoned someone.

"Oh god, hang on," Akin said quickly, scrambling to take off his shirt and wrapped it around my leg, holding his arm out for Yiuwa's jacket. Yiuwa yanked his jacket off with no problem and tossed it to him so he could staunch the blood. And gods, was there an ungodly amount of blood. It was soaking my pants, the back of my shirt.

"It's not healing," Yiuwa said frantically.

"Xios wounds don't heal," Zetnos cursed, "Not on their own. We need to get him to the hospital immediately. Hannibal, tell your mother to be ready at the hospital with Hades. We're going to have to take him by foot until we reach the stairwell." Hannibal nodded and said something into the phone. As he did so, Zetnos came over and added his shirt to the mess of clothing around my leg.

A second later, I was hoisted up into the air and it took me a moment to realize that it was Yiuwa holding me up like I was some kind of princess. While I felt I should've been irritated, and normally would have been, I couldn't resist leaning my head against his shoulder, closing my eyes to savor his muscular arms around me.

The next few minutes seemed to go by in a blur. I drifted in and out of consciousness. I could hear voices around me; Akin's, Zetnos, Hannibal, Yiuwa's. Eventually, I could hear Lea and Hades. The sound of beeping and calling out. All I could concentrate on was the feel of Yiuwa's arms around me... until they were gone and I slipped into the darkness.