The cave floor was just beneath her and she hovered there, studying the layout, the way the chamber widened and ran into a maze of galleries. She took her time, not wanting to miss the slightest taint of dark magic that would herald an attack. This was Xavier's private realm. She recognized the high ceilings and network of lava tubes leading to various chambers where he conducted his gruesome experiments.
We got lucky. This is Xavier's exclusive domain. The entire mountain is a maze of tunnels and chambers and we were lucky enough or crazy enough to find his private quarters.
Her voice shook and she pulled back to get a better grip on her emotions. She hadn't considered what it would do to her to be surrounded by Xavier. He was everywhere, his mark on everything. His smell filled her with dread. He had been there recently. No matter what anyone said, his pipe tobacco mingled with the pungent scent of blood smelled all too fresh. No matter how long ago it had been, she couldn't forget the difference between old blood and new and the way his tobacco intermingled, making her gag.
If at any time, Lara, you have to leave this place, Nicolas reassured,tell me and I will get you out. And I will come back and search for your aunts . He wanted to hold her, to wrap her up in comfort and make her feel beautiful and safe. No one was ever going to understand what it cost her to come to
this place, to be haunted by the torment of that young child.
Thank you. She sent him waves of warmth.He's been here, Nicolas. Very recently. And if he's still using these chambers, he would never leave them without serious traps. The floor is washed in magic. I think the entire room is a trap .
Nicolas shifted to the common Carpathian path.Do not touch anything. We should move on to the next chamber .
Lara tried to remember where she had seen the young woman miscarrying.Take the left tube and move slowly. Even the disturbance of air could trigger an attack .
The four of them went as carefully as they could down the twisting ice tunnel until they came to a series of smaller chambers. Lara sucked in her breath, the smells hitting her like a punch in the stomach. Water trickled from the walls, dripped from the ceiling and poured out in other places so that she heard a continuous echo, loud and growing even louder until it rang in her ears and filled her mind with confusion.
She remembered that sound from her childhood. The sound seemed to be an alarm, roaring through the chambers, or whispering quietly, but warning her of the monsters lurking everywhere. Her heart beat too fast and she could barely draw air into her lungs, but she kept moving, directing Nicolas toward the terrible chambers where the screams of victims drowned out the relentless sound of water.
Lara stopped just inside the room where Razvan had been kept chained. Memories rose along with bile and she couldn't hold the form even with Nicolas helping her. She needed to kneel on the ice floor and put her head down to keep from passing out.
Nicolas dropped a hand on her shoulder. «You do not have to do this.»
She drew a breath and nodded. «I do. I do have to do this.»
But she couldn't look at that alcove where her father had been chained so much of the time. Where she had been kicked and beaten, where the flesh had been torn from her wrist so sharp greedy teeth could bite deep and drain her to the point she was dizzy and wheezing for air. She remembered crawling across the floor, the cold biting into her knees and arms, on her belly, like a dog, he'd said, too weak to get up.
«There's fresh blood here,» Natalya said. «It's all over the place.» She touched a manacle, smeared the blood on her fingers and held it to her nose. Her face paled. «Razvan. This is my brother's blood. He had to have been here within a rising or two.» The blood was sticky and congealed, but not dry.
Vikirnoff examined the manacles. «Vampire blood to burn him while he's chained.»
Lara shuddered. «There's so much blood, and stab wounds in the ice. Look at that,» she pointed to the wall. «It looks as though he was stabbed and the instrument went through him and out the other side.»
Natalya skimmed her palm down the wall without touching the blood spatter. Lara could hear her heart pounding and the rhythm matched the drumming of the water coming out of the walls. Natalya's body trembled as she kept her hand over the blood of her twin.
«There's something here.»
Lara put out her palm to feel the energy band. It was low, humming, very much alive. «The energy
doesn't feel dark.»
Natalya shook her head. «It's Razvan. He left something here. When we were children we used to leave messages for one another right under Xavier's nose.» She frowned and paced the length of Razvan's prison, both hands palm out away from her body as if feeling the air.
Lara tried not to be that little girl, worthless and lonely in the cave with only ice spiders for friends. She detested how pathetically jealous she was that Natalya had good memories of her father. She rubbed at the ridges on her wrist.
Nicolas reached over and took her hand, bringing it to his chest.I love you, sivamet .
Her heart fluttered. She wasn't that lonely child anymore, living in terror, feeling worthless and unloved. She looked up at him, at his beautiful face, so masculine and strong. There was love in his eyes, tenderness in the way the pad of his thumb swept back and forth over the palm of her hand. This tall, dangerous man loved her.Loved her. With all her failings, even her aversion to letting anyone take her blood, he loved her, and that was everything.
Nicolas turned up her wrist and brushed his lips over the fading scars.I am very grateful that I found you .
She sent him a quick, teasing smile.Actually, I found you .
Natalya's gasp drew her attention.
«I found it. He left a message behind.» Natalya leaned over the ledge of ice, waved her hands gracefully, murmuring low.
That which is hidden from all sight, created between two who shared the fight. Blood of blood, twin and twine, show me now the twining rhyme.
The ice lit up from within and an image wavered, a hologram of a man ravaged by time and torture. He was manacled to the wall, no shirt and his trousers in shreds. Lines cut deep into his face. His hair was in dreadlocks, streaked with gray, but it was his eyes that Lara couldn't look away from-so filled with sorrow and pain.
The hologram began to glow and the man spoke, but his words were garbled, unintelligible, a twin talk devised and scrambled between the brother and sister. Natalya's hands moved, gently weaving another unlocking spell, rearranging the notes of his voice, working to make sense of the message left long ago-and meant only for her eyes and ears. Slowly she began to see the pattern of the language, unraveling it until he made sense.
«Natalya. Beloved sister. I pray you find this message I've hidden at great cost. I dare not let Xavier ever touch you or my Lara. He's evil beyond all imagining. I no longer have the strength to fight him, although I believe I've put up a worthy battle. He uses my body to produce children he can feed on and, although I have tried, I cannot stop him.» He shuddered, pain crossing his face. «The knowledge that it is me he uses to cause such harm to others, to those I love, is far worse than any physical torment he has ever devised.»
Natalya let out a soft cry of distress. Vikirnoff circled her waist with his arm.
«When I could, I helped their mothers escape him and take the children far from him, but I do not even
have that ability left to me. I opened my soul in a moment of weakness and he owns it now, commanding me for his foul purpose and, though I am aware on some level, I cannot resist his commands. I think that amuses him so much he wants to keep me alive. Few things amuse him these days.»