Chapter 672: Sour mood
"However, one of them concerns me."
The man’s hairless brows rose in surprise.
His empty sockets remained directed toward her face, and the woman found herself regretting the admission before she had finished considering it.
"The young man who spoke for them," she added. "His strength is unremarkable compared with ours, but there is something about him."
"Something?"
"I intend to let the master judge for herself."
The young man watched her for a moment longer, then lowered his eyelids again.
With those terrible hollows concealed, his face recovered its deceptive serenity, though the smile at his lips had become more pronounced.
"Then I suppose I should let you continue."
He stepped past her, close enough that the edge of her sleeve brushed his ink-covered arm. His skin was cold, like the cold of winter.
Calling it as cold as a corpse was doing it an injustice. The woman turned slightly as he began descending.
"Were you with the master?"
He paused two steps below her, his head inclined as though listening to something she could not hear. Then his shoulders rose in a small, languid shrug.
"Good luck."
She frowned.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
His laughter answered her.
It began softly, barely more than a breath, then developed into an eerily delighted sound that slipped through the winding passage.
There was something almost anticipatory in it, a pleasure that frustrated her greatly as he continued down the steps.
"The master is not in a good mood today," he said. "She seems to be hungry... It would do us all some good if you brought her some fresh fruit from his garden. Though she did say she was getting tired of the taste. She says they taste the same, so I’m not sure if that will ease her mood either... Perhaps it would be better to bring in those pleasant gifts sooner rather than later."
His voice faded around the curve, followed by another quiet burst of laughter.
The woman stood still until even that had disappeared, listening to the faint, retreating touch of his bare feet against the stone.
She faced the stairs again.
When she finally resumed her ascent, she did so in silence, the folds of her robes drawn close around her body. The staircase continued upward in its patient spiral, each turn revealing the same dark wall, the same unguarded drop and the same shallow steps beneath her feet.
There were no windows anywhere.
Whatever chambers the spire might have contained were inaccessible from this passage, hidden beyond stone that gave no indication of their existence.
The darkness remained absolute.
She could distinguish every detail within it, just as the young man had followed the stairs without eyes, but sight did little to relieve the oppressive sameness.
A fracture appeared in the wall, travelled diagonally across several blocks, then disappeared behind her as the staircase turned once more.
Her footsteps continued.
An hour passed.
Had Elion accompanied her, the duration of the ascent would have unsettled him far more than the darkness.
He had seen the spire from across the town, judged its height against the surrounding buildings, and watched the woman return to its entrance.
No ordinary staircase within such a structure could have required this much walking. Yet the woman climbed on.
The steps did not grow steeper, and she encountered no obstruction that might have accounted for the delay.
The passage simply continued, winding upward with an inexhaustible regularity, as though the interior possessed a length that bore little relation to the stone enclosing it.
At intervals, she could hear her own movement returning from somewhere above.
The echoes were faint and delayed, sometimes arriving after she had rounded another bend. Once, the soft scrape of her robe seemed to reach her from below, though she knew there was no one following.
She did not stop to listen.
The young man’s parting words remained with her, making the report she had intended to deliver seem increasingly welcome.
Some of it offered much reason for the master’s mood to improve.
Her gaze stayed on the stairs.
The stone beneath her feet gradually became smoother, its worn surface giving way to broad, seamless treads.
Along the wall, the mortar lines vanished as well, leaving a continuous sweep of dark material whose shallow sheen resembled polished mineral.
She recognised the change, and her pace slowed.
The air had become colder, and the faint metallic smell from the entrance returned, though there was no visible source.
Each breath seemed to be drawn heavily into her chest, and she loosened her grip on the robes before realising that her fingers had grown rigid around them.
One final turn brought her to the end.
The staircase opened onto a small, circular landing, its floor unblemished and its walls entirely bare.
The central shaft terminated beside it, leaving the last few steps suspended above a depth she could no longer measure.
Ahead stood a single door.
It was sleek and black, its surface so flawlessly smooth that it seemed carved from one immense piece of obsidian.
A narrow seam traced its outline within the wall, but there were no ornaments or any visible hinges to interrupt its austere perfection.
After the interminable ascent, its simplicity was almost dreadful.
The woman stopped before it, her crimson eyes fixed on that immaculate darkness. For a long moment, she remained motionless, with her report waiting on her black tongue.
After taking a deep, shuddering breath, she approached the door and pushed it open. It yielded with a low creak, allowing a sliver of pallid light to spill onto the steps beneath her feet.
A bone-chilling cold swept out of the chamber, making her shiver as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
Within, the temperature was even lower, and her body trembled uncontrollably in a futile attempt to keep warm. Any ordinary human would have died the moment that door opened, without a doubt.
"I sensed outsiders passing through the barrier."
A deep, resonant voice rumbled from the darkness farther within the chamber, making the woman tremble even more violently. Before she could gather herself to answer, it spoke again.
"I take it you came to inform me?"