Ravenna Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 5 of 6

Ravenna followed the burning map from the cliff hut. It led her down through cracked stairs and old tunnels, deep beneath the light-kingdoms. She walked in her court robes with the sword at her hip. The three shards pulsed in her hand, guiding each turn. At last the tunnel opened into a low chamber. The blank stone face waited before her, just as the vision had shown. No door. No lock. She had feared this moment since the shards fell silent on the last step. She pressed her palm to the cold rock. Nothing moved. She pushed with her shoulder, then struck it with the sword's pommel. The stone did not answer. Ravenna stepped back, breathing hard. She had the path and the proof, and still the wall stood shut. Then she saw it. Set before the wall stood a squat stone altar, its surface carved with runes. Faint light crawled through the grooves, green and violet. At its center a symbol glowed—the same crest stitched on her robes. The altar had waited here, dead, until someone of the court came near. Ravenna knelt before it. The runes brightened as her robes brushed the stone. She understood now. This was the lock her mother never named. It did not want a key of iron. It wanted the relic and the heir together. She unwrapped the three shards and set them on the altar's face. The crest flared. The shards sank into the carved grooves as if the stone drank them. Ravenna drew her sword and laid the blade flat above them. The runes climbed the altar in lines of fire. "I am the blood of this court," she said. Her voice shook the chamber. "Open for your heir." The altar roared to life. Light poured from every rune and washed the walls. The blank stone face split down the middle. Old dust rained from the seam. With a grinding groan, the two halves ground apart, and cold air rushed out from the dark beyond. Ravenna rose. The shadow gate stood open before her. Her mother's promise had held. She had come dressed as a ruler, and the court had known her. But the air from the gate carried a sound. Not silence. Voices. Somewhere down in the dark, low chanting rose and fell. Torchlight flickered against the far walls of the passage. The court beyond the gate was not empty. Someone had been waiting behind that stone. Ravenna gripped her sword and stared into the moving light. She had spent this whole road believing the throne stood abandoned, hers to claim by blood alone. She had been wrong. The gate was open now, and it could not be shut again. Whatever kept the chant going down there had heard the stone break. They knew she had come.