“I thought it was here,” he whispers, voice quivering softly. “I really, truly, thought it was here.”
“I’m sorry it wasn’t.” Sorrow rises from the soles of his feet. I stand in it next to him, as though we are adrift in an ocean of his making. The backs of my knuckles brush lightly against his. That prompts him to face me, but I am somehow pain to him, because his expression crumples and he shakes his head, avoiding my eyes.
“I should have known it was too much to hope for.”
“Perhaps something in here will help find it,” I try and offer optimistically. The hurt he’s exuding is too great to ignore. It’s in the pit of my stomach, as if this is my pain.
The bloodsworn magic is a dangerous thing. I need to begin actively fighting it, or else it might completely overwrite my feelings with his. I might find myself in too deep with the lord of the vampir. Deeper than I’ll be able to escape from when the time comes.
“Hopefully.” His expression is contorted and pulled by the weight of disappointment. “I had just thought that perhaps I might be the one to break it.” He scoffs. “Foolish. Lords far better than I have been awoken and they couldn’t.”
“You made it farther than they did.”
“And what good did any of it do?”
I grab his hand, jerking his face back to me. “Every step is progress, even if we can’t see it in the moment.”
He sighs, face relaxing. Ruvan reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “You wouldn’t understand what it’s like to go to sleep with hope and wake up to find your world in shambles.”
“I know what it’s like to be born into a hopeless situation though,” I counter. “And I know what it’s like to work on something, to dedicate your life to it, and know it might never be enough. To be all right with merely being a vessel for generations of knowledge—one link in the chain. Nothing more.”
His fingers linger on the swell of my cheek before his hand falls back to his side. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Of course I am.” I nudge him.
He dares a smile. It’s small. But I think it’s the sincerest thing I’ve seen from him. There’s no pretense, no hate, none of the mess that brought us together and still lies around us, piled like twisted steel of false starts and half-hearted attempts.
“I think we’re ready to go,” Winny calls over.
Ruvan angles himself away from me to ask, “Do we have everything we might need?”
“Hopefully. We have as much as we can carry,” Lavenzia answers.
“I can carry more.” Ventos seems offended at the implication otherwise.
“As much as we can carry without being too encumbered.” Lavenzia rolls her eyes. “So, will it be the trapdoor? Or the way we came?”
“My vote is for the trapdoor.” Winny raises her hand.
“I’m not sure if I can fit.” Ventos adjusts his pack on his back. There are a few rations—obsidian blood vials—left behind on the tables to make room for even more notebooks.
“Suck it in, big guy.” Lavenzia pats his belly.
“You’re lucky I like you.” Ventos shoots her a glare.
“What does our illustrious lord, and hunter but not a hunter, think?” Winny asks us.
To my surprise, Ruvan turns to me. I quickly weigh the options and decide on, “The trapdoor.”
“Really? We don’t have a clear path forward that way,” Ruvan cautions. “It’s uncharted territory.”
“We’ve made up half of all this as we went.” I shrug. “Perhaps, if this room is so abandoned and so hard to get to, we won’t find any more who have Succumbed to the curse.”
“You’re too optimistic.” Lavenzia adjusts the blade on her hip.
“At least someone else is.” Winny opens the trapdoor. “I’ll be everyone’s meat shield again and scout ahead. If I come back, everything’s fine. If you hear screaming, assume it’s not.” She grins slightly and slips into the darkness, disappearing.
I continue turning over the disk in my pocket as we wait in tense silence. It’s such a unique metal. I’m trying to guess what it might be made from by weight and feel alone. I scratch it lightly. I need to be back in the smithy again to make any headway on discerning it.