Chapter 22: Blood Beneath the Moon
"What should we do now?"
Caelus let his gaze travel across the crowd.
Mercenaries stood in armed groups. Adventurers compared notes beneath their breath. Awakened lingered around the grounds, watching one another with the wary attention of people who had all come looking for the same thing.
None of them knew where the labyrinth was.
They only knew that one existed somewhere in the region.
That was enough to make the situation inconvenient.
He couldn’t simply walk directly toward the entrance. He knew the exact location and they didn’t. If he walked there with confidence, people would notice and follow him. They would realize he knew something they didn’t.
"We book an inn," he said. "If we start walking toward the entrance with confidence, people will notice. They’ll assume we know something they don’t and follow us."
Veyra considered the crowd.
"So we pretend we’re searching too."
"On point. We wait, observe, and move when the crowd thins."
Veyra raised an eyebrow. "You want to wait?"
"I want to avoid creating a procession." He paused. "The labyrinth isn’t going anywhere. But if fifty people follow us to the entrance, it becomes significantly harder to retrieve."
And he had no intention of fighting fifty people for something he already knew how to obtain.
Caelus stopped at the entrance of an inn they found and immediately reconsidered every decision that had led him there.
The building was old, the floor had clearly lost an argument with several generations of spilled drinks, and the air carried the combined scent of ale, sweat, and food that had been cooked too long.
It was beneath his standards.
Unfortunately, his standards weren’t particularly useful at the moment.
The disguise mattered more.
People stared at him.
His red eyes made him look like a vampire. He could hear the whispers, the quiet murmurs that followed him wherever he went.
"Is that a blood-sucker?"
"Look at his eyes, maybe a half-blood?"
"Are they allowed to move around freely now?"
"Maybe he’s just some rich young master with nothing better to do."
His enhanced hearing caught every whisper without effort.
Caelus ignored them.
If people wanted to waste their breath discussing his eyes, they were welcome to.
A young man dressed too well for the establishment also noticed him. Several low-level Knights stood around him, forming the unmistakable entourage of someone accustomed to having other people deal with his problems.
Caelus didn’t recognize him.
More importantly, he didn’t care to.
They sat down.
A waitress approached. "What would you like?"
Caelus had almost no experience eating in an ordinary inn. He looked at the menu. It was smudged and the options were limited.
Veyra sighed. She ordered something simple for lunch and a drink.
He didn’t complain. He was too irritated about the delay.
"Isn’t Eve going to eat?"
Veyra glanced at the shadow beneath her chair. "She’s maintaining a diet."
Caelus looked confused. "She’s already extremely lean. Is she trying to become a stick figure?"
Veyra stared at him. "What’s a stick figure?"
He opened his mouth and closed it.
"Forget it."
I really need to stop making references that don’t exist in this world.
They ate in relative silence. The food was edible. He finished quickly.
After they ate, they left.
Veyra looked around. "Are you sure nobody followed us?"
Caelus noticed some people watching them. He didn’t care.
"Let them."
Veyra glanced at him.
Caelus continued walking.
"They’re going to die anyway. If they follow us, at least they’ll reduce the number of people competing for the labyrinth."
---
He led Veyra away from the populated area. The terrain changed gradually. The ground became harder, the vegetation thinned, the air grew cooler.
They eventually reached the valley.
Caelus stopped at its edge.
The earth simply ended.
A colossal scar stretched across the landscape, its walls descending at an unnatural angle as though some impossible blade had cleaved the land from horizon to horizon. Darkness filled the depths below. Not ordinary darkness, there was no visible floor, no rock, no vegetation, not even the faint reflection of light.
Just an empty blackness that seemed to swallow everything that entered it.
Nobody knew what had created the valley.
Caelus did.
He had written its history long before he ever imagined standing above it.
The valley was connected to the Temple of the Moon labyrinth. The entrance would appear when the conditions were right, when a sacrifice was offered, or the labyrinth would take one on its own.
He stopped.
He turned around.
"Come out."
Two adventurers emerged.
The first was extremely large. Broad shouldered and thick bodied, built like a wall. Probably a D-rank. He carried a massive axe on his back.
The second had a normal build, more compact and controlled. His posture was upright and his movements were deliberate. He felt C-rank from the air around him and seemed to possess a core appropriate to the Knight path.
They had followed him.
The larger man looked at Veyra.
His gaze lingered long enough to make the intention behind his words obvious.
"Mind lending us your companion, kid? We’ll return her after we’re finished having a little fun."
The other adventurer immediately turned. "Gerald. Shut up. We came for an objective."
Gerald shrugged. "I was only making a suggestion."
The C-rank knight addressed Caelus more seriously. "You know where the labyrinth is. We want in. Tell us the location, and we’ll compensate you fairly."
Gerald gestured at Veyra. "And I still want the girl."
The knight’s voice was sharp. "Gerald. I said shut up."
Caelus glanced at Veyra.
She was visibly irritated.
Then he looked back at the two men.
"You want the labyrinth?"
The Knight nodded cautiously.
"Then accompany us. We’re short on manpower."
The faint smile remained.
The Knight hesitated. "And how exactly do we divide the loot?"
"You don’t."
Caelus smiled. "Cripple them. Keep them alive."
Veyra’s shadow rippled and Eve stepped out of it.
Gerald barely had time to turn.
Her blade flashed once.
His knee buckled beneath him as the strike severed the joint. His grin vanished before the scream left his throat, and his massive frame crashed onto the ground.
The Knight’s expression changed instantly.
His hand moved toward his weapon.
Eve was already inside his guard.
Steel flashed again.
His sword dropped from his fingers as her blade carved through his arm, followed by a second strike that took his leg out from beneath him.
Both men hit the ground within seconds of each other.
Caelus approached the two injured adventurers. He began dragging them toward the valley.
Gerald clawed at the ground as Caelus seized him by the collar.
"Wait!"
Caelus ignored him.
The Knight tried to speak as well, but Caelus caught him by the back of his clothes and dragged him after the first man.
Stone scraped beneath their bodies.
Veyra followed several steps behind.
"Caelus."
He didn’t stop.
"What are you doing?"
"Opening the entrance."
The entrance would appear when the conditions were right and a sacrifice was offered. If no sacrifice was provided, the labyrinth would simply claim one of those attempting to enter.
Caelus knew the labyrinth required a sacrifice.
Only one.
The first man would have been enough.
The second was insurance.
If either survived, they could spread the location. If they entered the labyrinth themselves, they became competitors. He wasn’t willing to gamble the Eclipse Ring for the sake of two men who had already decided to rob him.
One sacrifice opened the path.
The other removed a problem.
He would tell Veyra the labyrinth required them.
She didn’t need to know that one would have been sufficient.
He reached the edge of the valley.
The darkness below stirred. It was subtle, almost imperceptible. The void seemed to recognize his presence. The air grew heavier.
He looked down at the two injured men. Gerald was still trying to crawl away, his fingers scraping against the stone. The knight had gone still.
He turned toward the abyss.
Caelus’s eyes began to bleed.
Thin crimson lines slipped from the corners and traced the shape of his cheeks.
Veyra’s expression changed.
Caelus spoke.
The words were unlike anything she had heard from him before. They scraped their way out of his throat in a voice that no longer sounded entirely human.
"Dae’keth vor’ash mel’thun."
Let the blood of the uninvited descend beneath the Moon.
"Ael’na morveth, lun’arae thess."
Let the forgotten night open its eye.
"Zhul’nor dae’keth, vel’khun thess."
By flesh, by soul, by crimson tide,
"Thal’vok nar’ae. Lun’kael vel’ash."
I offer what walks beneath the pale heavens.
The valley answered.
The darkness shifted, the void seemed to open as the air changed. The abyss recognized the offering.
Gerald tried to dig his fingers into the stone.
Caelus caught him by the back of his collar and dragged him to the edge.
"Wait!"
The word barely left his mouth before Caelus released him.
His body disappeared into the blackness.
The Knight stared at him.
For the first time, genuine fear replaced the composure he’d maintained throughout the encounter.
Caelus grabbed him next.
"You don’t have to do this."
"I know."
He threw him in.
The darkness swallowed them.
Veyra didn’t move.
Her gaze remained fixed on the darkness where the two men had disappeared.
Then it shifted to Caelus.
She wasn’t looking at him like she had during the carriage ride.
There was no curiosity in her eyes now.
There was calculation, and beneath it, something much closer to caution.
"The labyrinth requires a sacrifice," Caelus said. "One living person becomes the medium that allows us to enter."
Veyra’s eyes narrowed.
"And you knew that?"
He looked into the darkness. "I knew enough."
"If we entered without one, the labyrinth would have used one of us as the medium instead."
His gaze returned to her.
"Two should be more than enough."
Veyra stared at him.
"You said one sacrifice."
Caelus smiled faintly.
"I said the labyrinth requires a sacrifice."
He turned back toward the valley.
The valley changed.
The darkness below rippled outward from the place where the two sacrifices had disappeared.
Something opened beneath the void.
Ancient stone emerged from the blackness, forming a staircase that descended farther than Caelus could see. Pale symbols flickered along each step before vanishing into the darkness below.
The entrance had opened.
Caelus looked at it for a long moment.
Behind him, the distant voices of the other adventurers continued to echo across the valley.
They were still searching.
They had no idea that the entrance was already open.
Caelus smiled.
"Let’s go."