Page 47 of Shattered Jewel
We round a corner, and the path opens into a cavernous chamber. Stalactites drip from the ceiling like jagged teeth, and the air is thick with the stench of damp earth and something else, something rotten.
Kaspian stops abruptly, his hand shooting out to halt our progress. I peer around his sheer size, and my breath catches in my throat.
A stone altar lies in the center of the chamber, illuminated by a shaft of sickly green light. Its surface is stained with dark rust-colored patches and symbols are carved into the sides, tangled and coiling like serpents.
Axe is the first to move closer, his face blanched of color, and circles the altar slowly, running his fingers over the symbols at the top.
The slab is just the right length to splay out a human. My eye is drawn not just to the carvings, but the finger-sized gouges along the rough edges.
“What is it?” My voice sounds too loud in the oppressive quiet.
Kaspian slowly shakes his head. “Nothing good.”
Wilder moves to the far side of the chamber, scanning the walls and running his hands along thin, vertical marks. He asks in a voice matching the gravel around him, “Do you recognize the symbols, Axe?”
Axe nods.
Then peels off his shirt.
“Oh my god,” I say. No, I don’t say anything. I moan it through my fingers as they cover my mouth.
Many of the same markings on the altar are ones that the Sovereigns have carved into his back.
His muscular form flexes and strains with each movement, the raw, tortured maleness of him seeming to make the symbols on his back come alive in the eerie green light.
Axe looks at me over his shoulder, his eyes dark pools that the light can’t reach. The resigned look on his face twists something in my chest, and I reach for him?—
“Do you like what you see? What Axe has become?” Kaspian asks, a crooked smile accompanying his snide remark.
I recoil, my cheeks burning at the same time I hiss, “I’m not going to apologize for having a heart. Not even to men who clearly have no idea what it’s like to feel one beating in their chest.”
Kaspian returns his attention to the altar in clear dismissal. I wonder what I did to make him despise me so much. Opening myself up to Cav while they watched, at the time seemed … right. Beautiful, even. But Kaspian, with his unhurried disdain and reluctance to have me at his side now, makes me think I did something shameful.
And I hate him for it.
I am not ashamed.
Axe’s guttered eyes meet mine for another fleeting instant before he turns away, pulling his shirt on.
Wilder draws closer to Axe, his attention flicking between Axe and the altar. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
I edge closer, morbid curiosity overriding the hurt Kaspian brought forth.
Axe traces a finger over one particularly intricate carving.
“It’s some kind of ritual,” he mutters. “Blood magic, maybe. Something dark and ancient.”
Wilder shifts uneasily, his hand drifting toward the gun at his hip.
I dare to venture, “I thought your current Sovereigns were the only ones to bring dark magic into your rituals.”
“Yeah, that’s what we thought, too,” Wilder says, his eyes not leaving the stone altar.
I turn to Axe, my voice soft but firm. “Do you have any idea what these symbols might mean? Anything at all?”
He shakes his head, his expression unreadable.
“Leaving the question,” Kaspian says as he comes up behind me, “why does Axe have carvings on his back that are the same as ones found in an untouched chamber hundreds of years old?”