We stay for as long as we can, until finally Maeve commands us forward. I look back and try to hold Violetta’s grave marker in my sights, until she disappears around a bend.
One morning blurs into another. The twilight becomes darker each day, and the snow turns steady. No one crosses our path. It is as if we were traveling at the edge of the world. Our travel settles into long silences, where none of us feel in the mood to speak. Even Magiano rides quietly by my side, his expression dark. The energy of this terrain pulls us forward, calling to us. I see illusions at night and during the twilight days, see them chased away only by the light of our fires. Sometimes, the ghost of Violetta walks alongside my horse. Her dark hair doesn’t move in the wind, and her boots leave no prints in the snow. She never looks my way. Our path turns narrow, branching a dozen different ways every few hours, each leading deep into yet another set of mountains. Without Raffaele’s guidance, I have no doubt that we would lose ourselves out here in the cold.
Then, one day, we halt in front of a yawning cave.
It is an ominous entrance, its mouth lined with jagged rock, leading into complete and utter darkness. Still, we never would have found this place without the pull of its energy. Here, I can feel the tangible presence of the pulsing power that calls to us, the strength of it like a thousand threads tugging against every muscle in my body.
“We have to go alone,” Maeve says as she trots up beside us. “My men, they cannot follow us this way.” She nods to our horses, some of which have thin trickles of blood dripping from their nostrils. Their suffering gets worse the closer they get to the entrance. My own stallion refuses to take another step forward. I look back at Maeve’s troops. They also hang back. I’d never thought about how an energy powerful enough to affect each of the Young Elites might end up affecting common men, but now I can see it on their faces. Some have a sheen of cold sweat on their skin, while others look pale and weak. They have come as far as they can. If they enter this cave with us, they will die.
Maeve swings off her horse and nods at one of her soldiers. “Take them back with you,” she says.
The soldier hesitates. Behind him, the others shift too. “You will be left in a frozen wasteland, Your Majesty,” he replies, glancing around at us. “You—you are the Queen of Beldain. How will you make it back?”
Maeve fixes him with a hard stare. “We will find our own way,” she says. “If you join us, you will not survive. This is not a request. This is a command.”
Even then, the soldier lingers a moment longer. I find myself looking on in longing and envy, bitterness and grief. Would any of my soldiers in Kenettra be so loyal to me? Would they follow me out of love, if I did not use fear against them?
Finally, he nods and bows his head. “Yes, Your Majesty.” He places one hand over his chest, then kneels in the snow before her. “We will wait for you at the bottom of the pass. We will not leave until we see you return. Do not ask us to leave you entirely, Your Majesty.”
Maeve nods. Her hard composure cracks, the only moment I’ve ever seen it do so. She suddenly seems very young. “Very well,” she replies.
The soldier stands and shouts an order to the troops. They salute their queen before turning their horses around, making their way down the path that we’d originally come. I stand in silence, watching them go. Would my soldiers ever salute me in honor?
When the sound of hooves fades to a dull rumble, Maeve returns to join us at the entrance of the cave. No matter how hard I try to stare into it, I can’t see anything except black—it is as if there were nothingness on the other side, and we would fall into it if we enter. Raffaele stands at the edge and closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath, then shudders. He doesn’t need to speak for me to know what he is going to say. I can feel the pull. We all can.
The Dark of Night is at the end of this cave.
Teren draws his sword and a long knife, while Lucent and Magiano do the same. I stand close to Magiano as we start to walk in. Violetta’s absence is a gaping void beside me. If she were here, I would tell her to stay close. She would give me a quiet nod. But she isn’t here.
So I turn to face the darkness without her, and walk in. I am too afraid to wonder whether we will be able to walk out.
I can see nothing, at first, and it makes me hesitate with every step I take. Our footsteps echo in the darkness, coupled with the sound of metal occasionally scraping against stone. The others must be using their swords as a guide along the edge of the cave. The air is bitterly cold in here and smells of something ancient, salt and stone and wind. I gulp over and over again, trying to keep myself from thinking that the walls are caving in on us. If only I could see—if only I could see. My old fear of blindness now flares to life, taking on a shape of its own in this darkness, and I think I can see the eyes of monsters in here, their stares fixed on me.
You will never get out of here, the whispers chant, pleased at my rising terror. You will live in darkness forever, just as you deserve.
I jump when a hand, warm and callused, touches mine. “You’re all right.” Magiano’s voice comes out of the darkness like a beacon, and I turn toward him. You’re all right. You’re all right. I force the whispers in my head to repeat this, and slowly, the mantra gives me the strength to take one step after another.
After what seems like forever, my vision finally starts to adjust. I can see the subtle grooves of stone in the cave’s ceiling, looming several feet above us, and from inside the grooves comes a faint ice-blue glow. Slowly, as more of the cave comes into focus, I can see the glow emanating from nearly every crevice in the ceiling. My steps slow as I try to get a better look at it.