Chapter 195

PIPER

Trajan's capture had cast weak and sad emotions over all of us.

The usually firm and composed Aurora didn't know what to do either, as she moved about in the weak light of the war room in Broken Ridge, her hands shaking uncontrollably as she held tightly to her pearl pendant.

I stood by the door, silently watching her. The pack was growing loud–murmurs of doubt about her decisions, whispers questioning her judgment.

My blood boiled, but not now. It wasn’t relevant now.

Warrick’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Piper,” he said, no sarcasm in his tone for once.

I turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “What do you want, Warrick?”

“I… I think I can help,” he stammered, so uncertain.

I crossed my arms. “Help? Like you 'helped' last time?”

He clamped his jaw tight, forging ahead. “I’ve heard stories. There’s this part of the forest nobody dares tread. Something is there, a relic–ancient, perilous–but it can give us a fighting chance against the Nameless.”

“Stories?” I echoed, utterly incredulous.

"Rumors, alright? But when in Rome, right?" he replied, his tone rising ever so slightly.

I watched him closely. For once, his eyes shone with a sign of sincerity; for once, he wasn't hiding behind smiles.

“Alright,” I said after some time. “But if this is one of your ploys, I will be the one to kill you.”

He nodded then, a little resolution settling over his face. “Deal. Let’s go.”

The trees were thick, the air thick with silence. Warrick led the way; his steps were kind of sure for someone navigating a place he’d said he'd never been to.

“How do you even know where we’re going?” I asked, my voice low.

“I don’t,” he said. “But the stories always mentioned this part of the forest. The trees are supposed to look different.”

I rolled my eyes but continued to follow him deeper into the underbrush.

And, amazingly, the further in we walked, the more the forest seemed to change. Trees stretched up taller, their trunks twisting unnaturally as if they were caught in screams.

“Comforting,” I muttered, the top of my dagger clutched tightly in my hand.

Warrick didn’t say a word. He just stared straight ahead.

The closer we drew, the stranger the sounds became: faint whispering that seemed to come from all directions at once. I froze, my head jerking toward the sound.

“Do you hear that?”

He nodded. “Just zone it out. Keep walking.”

Easy for him to say. The whispers grew louder, more insistent–like they were trying to lure us off the path. My steps faltered, my mind clouded with fragmented images.

“Piper!” Warrick’s voice snapped me back into reality. He clutched my arm with firm fingers. “Don’t listen to them.”

I nodded, still shaking the fogginess of the moments before. “Let’s keep going.”

After what felt like hours, we came into a clearing.

There in the middle of it stood some sort of decaying stone ash, and on its surface, etched upon it, were symbols that glowed faintly in the moonlight.

“This must be it,” Warrick whispered reverently.

The floor around the pedestal was covered in intricate designs–line after line, each joining another in a maze-like fashion. Warrick dropped to a crouch and looked at them.

“They’re a code,” he said, furrowing his brow.

“Can you figure it out?” I asked.

“Give me a moment,” he said, tracing the lines with his finger.

We tried to understand the patterns together, with every symbol a different direction–a wrong step into who-knew-what.

"Left," I said, pointing to the next one.

"No, it’s right," Warrick said.

I gave him my best glaring look.

“Are you sure?” I asked him.

“Trust me,” he replied, and stepped. The symbol lit up, and we exhaled.

After an eternity, we gained the pedestal; Warrick reached for the relic, and I looked at his hand.

“Wait,” I said, pointing to the inscription written into the base. “What does that say?”

He peered hard at the ancient text, working his lips as if trying to talk the translation out.

“It is a warning,” he finally said. “Something to do with a curse.”

“Of course there’s a curse,” I muttered. “What does it do?”

“I don’t know,” Warrick admitted, his hand moving over the relic. “But we don’t have a choice. This might be our only chance to weaken the Nameless.”

I hesitated, my gaze moving between him and the artifact. The air around it felt thick, tingling with weird energy.

“Piper,” Warrick said, his voice very serious, “we need this. Whatever the curse is, we can sort it out later.”

I clenched my fists. My mind was racing. With the relic, we had a good chance of winning against the Nameless, but if the curse was too powerful…

Warrick's hand hovered over the relic, his fingers shaking while he reached for it.

“Are you sure about this?” I whispered.

He looked at me, his face moody.

“No. But we don’t have a choice.”