Chapter 137

Nothing barred our way into the fourth tier - other than the narrow squeeze through the window slits.

The space inside opened up immediately. The tier stretched nearly sixty feet across, though the room we entered filled only a portion of that - one quadrant carved into a clean, pentagonal shape, like someone had divided the floor and removed a precise wedge.

The walls were the same seamless white stone as the exterior. The floor though, looked like crystal. Translucent. Smooth. I couldn’t tell what lay beneath it.

A large wooden desk sat at the center, the walls lined with shelves that held carefully chosen books. A single hardwood door led deeper into the structure.

Iolite and I moved quickly and quietly. I took the desk. She moved to the shelves.

I found a ledger - entries of goods coming and going - but it was all shorthand and codes I didn’t recognize. MC27.6M. M4A1. FNT. HPL. Meaningless to me.

“I found something,” Iolite whispered. She held up a map.

Noraethil was marked. So were several other villages - all clustered near the borders of Ilyr’Vaeneth, Caldris, and Esmori.

I took both and sent them to my demesne.

We didn’t linger.

Beyond the door was another room, square, but set at an angle to the exterior - rotated enough to look like a deliberate - but strange - architectural choice. Three doors branched off from it, and a wide spiral staircase descended into darkness.

Above us, the ceiling shimmered faintly - crystal again, like the floor from the previous room.

A thin line of light bled from beneath the door to the right.

And down the staircase I could just make out the suggestion of a vast space below.

I gestured left. We slipped into the next room and closed the door behind us.

Another office.

Similar layout. Different purpose. The shelves here held books on warfare - strategy, tactics, conquest. A pair of curved blades from Iilvarion crossed and mounted on the wall. An orcish pike stood upright in a rack. A torn Arvellian battle standard hung framed like a trophy.

Whoever used this room wasn’t a scholar - they were a collector. Or a commander.

We split up again. I took the desk. Iolite moved to the shelves.

Another ledger. Names this time. Addresses.

My legs gave out before I realized it. I dropped into the chair, the wood creaking under the sudden weight.

Ohio. New York. California. Virginia. Places that didn’t belong here. Places no one here should even know existed. Except me.

My throat went dry.

“What’s this?” Iolite whispered.

I **** myself to look up. She stood in front of a display case, blocking part of it from view.

I pushed myself to my feet and crossed the room.

Inside the case, resting on dark velvet, was a pistol. Not some crude imitation. Not a relic. A modern automatic handgun. Beside it, a full magazine.

“No,” I breathed. “No, no, no…”

I took a step back, my chest tightening, something cold and heavy settling in my gut.

This wasn’t coincidence. This was something else entirely. Something wrong.

I grabbed the display case and the ledger and sent both to my demesne. The weapon couldn’t stay here. The ledger… I didn’t even know what it meant yet.

A dull red glow began to bleed through the crystal floor beneath us.

Iolite and I exchanged a look.

Somewhere deeper in the building, a door opened. Closed. Footsteps followed - steady, deliberate - descending the staircase.

“What’s going on down there?” I asked.

She crouched, pressing herself flat against the crystal, her form spreading thin as she looked through the stone. She pulled back almost immediately.

“One of the Weeping Gallows is glowing,” she whispered.

The pit in my stomach deepened. “I need to go down,” I said. “See what’s happening. You need to get out. Now.”

“I’m not leaving without you,” she shot back, just as quiet.

“Please, Iolite,” I said. “I don’t know what this is. If something goes wrong-”

“Then we leave together,” she hissed.

“I can’t.” The words came out sharper than I meant. “I need to know.” I didn’t wait for her answer. I slipped out the door and eased it shut behind me.

The staircase spiraled downward, bathed in that dull, bleeding red light.

Each step felt heavier than the last.

Voices drifted up from below. Low. Controlled. And beneath them something else.

The room opened up as I descended - massive. At least a hundred and fifty feet across, the ground a full hundred feet below the level we’d entered from.

Weeping Gallows filled the space. Dozens of them. Paths wound between their roots, worn into the grass by constant use.

And on every tree were people. Some alone. Some not.

The closer I got, the more moans of pain I heard. Whispers of confession. Pleas for release. Sobs that cracked and reformed into something almost… reverent. The sounds reached my ears in a maddening chaos filled with unnatural zeal, unmistakable grief, and unstable murmurs. All were made - not by the trees - but by the people in them.

The Gallows here were larger than the one in my bailey. Thicker. Twisted into grotesque shapes that barely resembled trees anymore. Faces pressed against the bark - eyes opening now and then, too human, too aware. Watching.

The faces grimaced, contorted, pressed against the confines of the bark as if trying to break free.

At the center stood something worse. A tree grown into the shape of a house - like the one in Noraethil but larger. Windows stretched into hollow eyes. The doorway into a mouth, frozen wide in a silent scream.

And from that mouth and those eyes that red light poured.

The roots shifted. The branches pulled back. The mouth opened wider. Shadows gathered inside.

A man stepped out, pushing a flatbed cart stacked with crates.

Olive green. Hard edges. Clean lines. Distinctive ridges. Plastic. Manufactured. Familiar. Wooden crates sat on top of them - older, but just as recognizable. And above those, smaller metal boxes. All marked with yellow lettering.

I didn’t understand most of it. I didn’t need to. A lifetime of action movies had trained me to instantly recognize the crates for what they were.

Weapons. Ammunition.

Not just that. Earth weapons. U.S. military.

My grip tightened on the railing until the wood creaked, then cracked under the pressure.

Another man emerged from the red-lit maw. Then another. Then another.

Flatbeds. Crates.

More followed, hauling pallet jacks loaded with shrink-wrapped stacks of supplies I couldn’t fully make out.

From another door below, workers pushed rough wooden crates stamped with the Blacktide Haul guild’s mark.

Different supply line. Same destination.

I didn’t know what was in those crates. But I knew what was in the others. And I knew one thing with absolute certainty. None of it could be allowed to leave this place.

* * *

I vaulted the banister of the spiral staircase and called my cloak. It answered in a flash - snapping around me, then splitting wide into dragon-like wings that caught the air and slowed my fall.

I dropped hard between the massive Gallows and the last man pushing a pallet jack, cutting off their path.

There were shouts of surprise. Pistols came up in steady hands.

“I don’t know what you’re doing with guns,” I said, voice tight with anger, “or how the hell you’re getting to and from Earth - but you have one chance. Drop them. Walk away. Whatever this is - it ends now.”

I could feel my rage building. My control was already slipping.

“Fuck you!” one of them snapped and fired.

The shot hit me square in the chest. It didn’t pierce the armor, but it knocked the breath from me and sent me stumbling back. Pain bloomed sharp and deep.

A single electric guitar note rang out - clean and sharp - then began to build into a fast, repeating pattern, a whisper of cymbals beneath it.

The rest of them opened fire.

Bullets hammered into me - chest, arms, shoulders - each impact jarring, bruising, cracking bones beneath the surface. I turned my face aside and pushed forward anyway, swinging Unity into the nearest shrink-wrapped pallet.

It shattered. Plastic burst apart. White powder exploded into the air.

They scattered.

“Ahhhh - ahhh - ahhh - ahhh…” I sang, the rhythm taking hold.

Another shot cracked against my head. The world snapped sideways as I hit the ground. My cloak held - took the worst of it - but the impact rang through my skull like a bell. My vision blurred.

The ground beneath me rumbled. I turned just in time to see Iolite erupt from the earth - towering - easily ten feet tall. She brought a stone fist down on the nearest attacker with crushing ****.

“Ahhhh - ahhh - ahhh - ahhh…”

I **** mana into the ground and pushed myself upright. Heat began to build - slow at first, then rising fast.

Unity struck again. One man went flying across the chamber. Another followed.

Iolite tore through them, each blow sending bodies sprawling, their cries swallowed by the chaos. Bullets ripped into her, chunks of soil and stone blasting free with every impact.

Gunfire roared. Muzzle flashes lit the chamber in stuttering bursts.

I raised a shield of pure mana, catching the worst of it, but the barrage didn’t stop. They weren’t careful. Rounds struck the Weeping Gallows around me. Bark splintered. Thick red sap bled from the wounds.

The people inside fared worse. Some screamed as stray shots tore into them. Others didn’t react at all - lost in whatever the Gallows were whispering into their minds.

“Ahhhh - ahhh - ahhh - ahhh…”

Disposable. That’s what they were. The Covenant didn’t even try to protect them.

I didn’t know if they could be saved. Half of them were more tree than human now, bodies fused into the wood. All were held in place by those jagged, unyielding branches.

Unity slammed into another flatbed. Crates burst apart, rifles scattering across the ground.

The heat climbed higher.

One of the men broke and ran for the staircase.

Across the chamber, a door slammed open.

Bloodchildren poured through - fast and feral - eyes locked on us.

Something caught my arm mid-swing. A whip of thorned vines wrapped tight, trying to bite into flesh but unable to pierce my armored shirt. Unity was torn from my grip as the brambles twisted and churned like a living chainsaw. A gallowborn.

“Thunder!” I shouted, stomping twice. The ground around me smoked as dry grass caught fire.

I opened my mouth and exhaled flame. Fire roared outward, devouring the vines that bound me, reducing them to ash. The man staggered back, thrown off balance.

“Ahhhh - ahhh - ahhh - ahhh…”

More doors opened - more men - wielding rifles this time.

I flung my mana shield toward Iolite as she met the bloodchildren head-on, bodies colliding in a frenzy of claws and stone and snapping jaws.

Bullets slammed into me again, forcing me back - but I managed to stomp twice more. “Thunder!”

The ground gave way. Stone softened, then melted - liquefying into molten rock. Lava swallowed the crates, devouring everything it touched.

Another hail of gunfire drove me to my knees.

“I was caught… in the middle of a railroad track…”

The ground cracked open, glowing veins of molten stone spilling outward, heat surging up in waves.

Men shouted, scrambling back as the lava spread, bubbling and hungry.

One of the bloodchildren tore Iolite’s arm free.

She screamed - a sharp, startlingly human sound.

My vision dimmed at the edges.

My mana was running dry. Regardless, I drove what I had left into the ground. Lava erupted in a violent jet, bursting upward in a column of fire and molten stone.

Iolite turned toward me, staggering. A bloodchild clung to her back, tearing into her, ripping chunks of earth and stone away. She ran anyway. Leapt at me and hit me like a falling wall.

Everything went black.

* * *

I woke to a splitting headache worse than I’d ever had. I tried to lift a hand to my head, but something caught my wrist and gently pushed it back down.

“Don’t touch it,” Iolite said. “The hard part is squishy.”

I didn’t know what that meant - the pain in my head making it hard to think.

I was on the ground. My head rested in her lap. She was… surprisingly soft and comfortable. Or maybe I just hurt too much to notice anything else.

My entire body hurt - every muscle, every bone, every everything. Even the thought of trying to sit up hurt. “Where are we?” I asked.

It was still night. The sky stretched overhead, stars scattered across it, streaked through with faint red and blue like something had bled into the heavens. The moon hung low, already slipping away.

“Outside the pyramid,” Iolite said. “I tried to get everyone out. Then I sealed the door so the lava would stay inside.” She paused. “Most of the Covenant ran. Only the visitors are still here. Their eyes are leaking water and they are making sad noises.”

“Crying,” I murmured. “It’s called crying.”

“Yes,” she said. “They are crying. But they have not left.”

“Thank you,” I said. “For getting them out.”

She was quiet for a moment. “You were reckless,” she said. “That was dangerous. We should have left together. Come back with others.”

“You’re right,” I said. The words came harder than they should have. “It was reckless. And I put you at risk. I’m sorry.”

“You put everyone at risk,” she corrected. “And those people in the trees died. You hurt people tonight.”

That hurt. The consequences of my actions washed over me. My throat tightened. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I seem to be doing that a lot lately. I’ll try to do better. I will do better,” I added.

Tears burned at the corners of my eyes, blurring the stars above. I hadn’t even tried to control it. I’d just… let it loose.

Anger. Frustration. Fear. All of it poured into the ground, into the fire, into the destruction. And people paid for it. Again.

My temper had been getting the better of me recently. It started with Tansy. Or maybe it started before that and I just took it out on her. It didn’t matter. I was angry. I was making stupid mistakes. And I was hurting people.

“We should go home,” I said. I tried to sit up.

Pain exploded through me, sharp and immediate. Stars burst across my vision and I dropped back with a strangled breath.

Iolite shifted slightly beneath me, steadying my head.

“We should stay here until your head dries out,” she said. “It’s still muddy and soft.”

That didn’t sound promising, but I didn’t have the strength to argue.