Chapter 9

  “You look like you just figured out when the world’s going to end,” I muttered dryly as Simon came to a halt in front of me.

  “I did,” he replied flatly. “Or… something close to it.”

  There wasn’t a trace of humor in his voice. Not even a flicker of sarcasm.

  Wonderful.

  He met my gaze, and what I saw in his eyes made the humor die on my tongue. That same gleam of frantic excitement from earlier was gone, replaced by something harder. Something cold.

  Dread.

  “How nice,” I said, forcing my tone to stay light. “So? When and how’s it all going to happen?”

  “Not now,” Simon said seriously. “Not today.”

  “But in a few days,” Maira added, stepping up beside him. “Three, maybe two. No more than that.”

  She wasn’t guessing. She knew.

  Their postures confirmed it. Stiff shoulders, tense jaws, eyes that didn’t quite meet mine. Simon’s hands were clenched tighter than necessary around his notebook, and Maira kept adjusting one of her rings—something she only did when her nerves were getting the better of her.

  Vin, standing quietly at my side, had gone pale again. Her hands were clasped behind her back, fingers wringing silently. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.

  I stayed still.

  Calm.

  Or at least, I looked calm.

  Because someone had to be. They might have stopped calling me Boss, but that didn’t mean I’d given up the role. I was still the one they looked to. The stone in the storm.

  Even if, inside, I was anything but calm.

  Real fear had started to take root. Not the creeping unease from the inn. Not the cold dread of the Ice Wraith. This was bigger. Much bigger. The kind of fear that makes your heart feel too loud and your armor too thin.

  But I swallowed it down.

  And asked the only question that mattered: “What does this so-called end of the world look like?”

  My voice didn’t waver. That was something.

  Maira cleared her throat, her expression drawn. “Whoever built this place—whoever’s using it now—is summoning something. Something massive. If I’m reading the runes correctly… it’s not just a spell. It’s a ritual. And it draws from the Lower Realms.”

  My stomach twisted.

  The Underworld.

  Perfect.

  “Wait,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “How do you know what these runes mean?”

  The words came out sharper than I intended. Not accusatory—at least not consciously—but with an edge I immediately regretted.

  Maira’s gaze hardened.

  Even Simon looked at me with a flicker of disapproval, and Vin shifted uncomfortably beside me.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  There was a pause.

  Then, Maira answered. Her voice was quiet, but there was no shame in it. Only a grim sort of honesty.

  “I’ve used them before,” she said simply.

  I had figured as much. She was a cleric of Erebos. Of course she had dabbled in these things—underworld glyphs, death-marked language, forgotten sigils. Still, I knew I had to undo the sting in my tone.

  My response caught in my throat for a second. Then I said it.

  “…That’s good,” I offered awkwardly.

  Maira blinked, visibly surprised.

  I continued, slower this time. “That means you’ve worked with this kind of magic before. Maybe you can decipher more. Maybe you can stop whatever this is before it finishes.”

  She gave a small nod, her expression unreadable. But the tension in her shoulders eased—just a little.

  I let out a long breath, the kind that tried and failed to carry the weight of tension from my shoulders. My eyes swept over the group, lingering briefly on each of them. Their faces were pale in the blue rune-light, but alert—watchful.

  “Did anyone else find anything?” I asked, voice steady but low. “Any details—no matter how small. Anything could be important right now.”

  Simon stepped forward, his expression grim.

  “The magic in this chamber,” he began, “it’s not just old or powerful—it’s vast. I’m almost certain it’s the source of the blizzard outside.”

  That caught my attention.

  He continued, gesturing to the glowing runes along the walls. “A storm like that, sustained for this long and over such a wide area? That’s not weather. That’s a spell. One that’s been feeding off massive amounts of mana. The sheer volume of magical energy in this space alone… it’s more than any single crytomancer could produce. Far more.”

  He looked me straight in the eye.

  “There have to be at least three casters involved. And not just any amateurs. These are masters. Experts. I studied ten years at the Stormspire Academy—ten. My father taught there. I learned more magic before I was fifteen than most mages learn in a lifetime.”

  He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was quieter.

  “And even with everything I know—I have no idea how they established a stable link to the Lower Realms.”

  Maira folded her arms and shook her head slowly. “Nor do I,” she said softly. “Not even close.”

  That surprised me. Deeply.

  I turned to her, brow raised. “I thought you said you’ve used these runes before,” I said, not accusing, just confused. “I thought you’ve summoned things.”

  “I have,” she said immediately, almost defensively. “But never beings. Not like this. I’ve drawn power from the Lower Realms—borrowed it, channeled it, even woven it into blessings and curses. But I’ve never opened a gate. Never pulled something through.”

  Her voice was steady, but her eyes betrayed the weight behind her words. Not fear—regret, maybe. Responsibility. Or something darker.

  I sighed again. Great. So much progress.

  A deadly storm created by unknown mages.

  A ritual to summon something massive from the Underworld.

  A chamber that shouldn’t exist beneath a roadside inn.

  And no one in the room had the faintest idea how it had actually been done.

  Finally, I spoke the conclusion that had been slowly forming in my mind, tying together the fragments of what we’d uncovered.

  “So,” I said, breaking the silence, “if I’ve understood everything correctly… the ritual, the connection to the Lower Realms, the blizzard outside—it all hinges on this chamber. This room is the anchor, isn’t it?”

  Around me, heads nodded one by one.

  Simon. Maira. Vin. None of them spoke, but the confirmation was clear in their expressions. Every piece of this nightmare seemed to point back to this space. This place wasn’t just some hidden relic—it was the core.

  “Good,” I said, folding my arms. “Then the simplest solution would be… to destroy the entire damn room, wouldn’t it?”

  The words echoed in the chamber, reverberating slightly off the rune-carved walls.

  The others hesitated. Long seconds passed. They weren’t dismissing it—not outright—but the silence said it all. It was a tempting idea. Direct. Clean. Brutal.

  And deeply uncertain.

  Vin was the first to voice what we were all thinking.

  “It is the simplest solution,” she said slowly. “But we have no idea what the consequences would be.”

  “Agreed,” Simon added with a grim nod. “There’s too much we don’t understand. The structure, the runes, the magic—it’s all interconnected. Runes like these don’t just channel energy. They bind it. Disrupting them blindly might…”

  He trailed off, but the implication was clear: might do more harm than good.

  “Or trigger whatever they’re meant to contain,” Maira finished, her voice low. “There’s a reason the runes on the ceiling are shaped like a dome. Domes are prisons. Cages.”

  My gut twisted at that.

  I took a breath and glanced at them all in turn, then offered cautiously, “What if we just… try something? A small disruption. A test.”

  Vin’s brow furrowed. “Even if we wanted to, how would we do that?” she asked, skepticism plain in her voice. “We don’t have demolition tools. No explosives. No anti-magic charges. And if we just start carving into the walls—”

  But I was already smiling.

  A wide, slow grin spreading across my face.

  “I have an idea.”