Alastair Von Vexx's Arc

Chapter 6 of 13

Alastair led Wisteria down through the roots, into the narrow dark where the gem cavern waited. He pressed her back against the cold stone wall and listened. Footsteps came soon, careful and slow. He counted three sets, then four. The door creaked open. Lantern light spilled across the cut stones. Alastair watched the figures step inside, ready to move — and then he saw who walked in last, and his breath stopped cold in his chest. A child stepped past the others and stopped beside the tall crystal pillar at the cavern's heart. The gems threw colored light across a small, pale face Alastair had buried in his memory long ago. A brother. Dead two hundred years, or so he had believed. The boy wore a glass vial of grove wildflowers on a cord at his throat — the same flowers their mother had pressed, the same cord Alastair had tied himself the night of the burial. The boy lifted his hand. A ruby locket swung from his fingers, sealed with seven iron clasps. Alastair knew the portrait inside without seeing it. His own face, painted when he was still soft enough to be loved. "Brother," the boy said, voice older than the body. "They kept me under the roots. You never came." The locket clicked once. One clasp fell open. Alastair felt something tear loose inside his ribs, and his hand dropped from the hilt at his belt. He stepped out from the shadow with empty hands. Wisteria reached for him, but he shook his head once, sharp. The enemies did not move to strike. They did not need to. They had walked in carrying the one weapon he could not answer — a face. Alastair sank to one knee on the cold stone and bowed his head. The ambush was over before it began. Whatever came next, he would hear it on their terms.