The Alpha Assassin novel Chapter 80

I felt entirely spent but renewed. As the powers drained from me, the heaviness lifted, and now, as I lay there depleted, the rush of magic settled around the place, warming me from within. I lay down on the cool stone and let it wash over me.

It was a sense of calm I could not ever remember feeling.

After a while Nova spoke, “It was said our lands were connected between the pools.” She was speaking to me as much as she was speaking life into the caverns.

I glanced at her to see she was lying near me, staring at the ceiling where the muted blue lights danced across, making waves in their wake.

I looked around the space—my eyes snagged on a bit of mortar that seemed different, a cracked brick, a stone slightly off in color—but nothing stood out to indicate that this place ever connected elsewhere.

But there was magic I had seen today I had never thought true, so I wouldn’t debase what she said off logic alone.

I looked back up,

“I-I—” she choked, seeming to shed something herself. I looked at her, but she was staring at the heavens.

Some of that always strong, confident, collected woman. It faltered a bit, and I saw it to be what it was: a projection, something slightly bigger than herself, something she could cling to despite what she was dealing with inside.

More than a leader, she was her people's hope, akin to the goddess she looked like.

“I told them with such certainty that our lands were waiting, that our goddess was waiting for us to return to bring power back to the blessed lands that were stolen from us,” she explained with such ferocity, but there was a hint of anger that seemed directed at herself.

I kept silent, waiting for her to go on.

“I fed them a dream, one that my ancestors clung to, and it was only that, a dream.” Her truth, her fears, her admissions weighed heavy in the space around us.

When it was evident she was not going to speak again I said, “You don’t know what is left for you, you just got your lands back.”

She looked at me with a self-pitying smile. “There is nothing here that connects to anything.” She motioned around the dome we were in.

“It could have been changed, been covered,” I reasoned, glancing around again.

“Why?”

“To protect it,” I guessed.

“By a pack of wolves?” she almost snarled and took a deep breath. “I apologize.”

“I understand,” I whispered. I wished I had an answer.

“Maybe there is some of our goddesses power left, lying dormant under hundreds of years of others leeching off her land.” Her voice rang with hardness. “I fed them a lie, many,” she admitted. “I wanted to believe them too, so I can’t say they were all intentional. But. But. I fed them lies.”

“You fed them hope,” I corrected her with ferocity.

“My kind has been living off hope for far too long,” she responded warily.

I propped myself up on my arm and looked at her. Forcing her to meet my stare. “And where has the hope you fostered in your people taken them?” I asked.

She smiled and closed her eyes, seeming to forget what lands were in her possession again.

“What if it’s not enough?” she asked. “I feel at home there, I know its more than something in my mind, I have never felt anything like stepping back onto those lands, especially after knowing they were back in our hands.”

She took a deep breath that heaved her shoulders, and let it out through her nose. “But what if that's just it? What if it just land?”

“Then you go back to feeding them hope,” I quipped. “But a hope to rebuild on a place gifted to your ancestors, you create your own place, and you grow, and even if you don’t have some magic water…” She laughed, it was rich and earthy, and almost felt real. “You have a home now. Because of you, because of what your ancestors never let die, because of every single one of those people behind you.”

“But if our lands aren’t blessed anymore, will all of the years of wandering, all of those that have died never seeing a permanent home, what would that be for?” Her eyes were haunted by generations gone by. “If there is nothing here for us, nothing for us to protect anymore, we could have established somewhere else so very long ago.”

“There is a reason you did not,” I told her. “I don’t know if I truly believe in destiny or fate anymore, but I do believe in resilience; that is something your line has by the bucketful.” She laughed again, and a smile tugged at my face. “Destiny is what you make it, and you have found your way back here,” I murmured.

She took a shuddering breath. “Now that I have, I am just worried it will not live up. I don’t know who I am as a leader without the purpose of returning them here—”

I sighed, blinking. I shared the same sentiment. “Then you find a new purpose,” I breathed.

We both lay there for a while, our thoughts swirling.

“And if there is no magic?” she asked, seeming to ask herself.

“Once we were forced to leave we tried to hide our entrance, I still do not know where it would be. Possibly built over. We did not know what happened to our sacred place after we were driven from our lands.”

She was shaking now, but her rage was palpable. “I do not know what will be left behind this wall, but I know that it will lead to what once was my pack's birthright.”

I felt it, too. She knelt down and flicked a hand, and a long, sharp claw extended. She ran it around a brick and then another, and the mortar crumbled. I followed suit, removing my dagger to chisel around the stones until they started to fall away. Nova tentatively pushed one, and it tumbled through the wall itself, landing with a dry hollow thunk.

The air that came out was dry and old. Awakening with a yawn. It drifted out past us, both curious and languid.

It took no time to pull the other stones away, leaving a hollowed-out space. I sensed her impatience and motioned for her to go through.

Nova ducked in and gasped. Before I could ask what it was, I saw her fall to her knees. And then the dark space was filled with something else, lighter than the darkness surrounding it Nova grunted as she pushed it through. When it protruded I helped pull, bracing myself against the ground and shifting it back and forth to get it to move to the chamber.

Nova appeared from the space standing tall, a goddess in her own right. It took me a moment to remember what was between us, a large old wooden trunk, sealed against the elements.

Nova sank to her knees in front of it, nervous energy charged between us, and I wasn’t sure if it was from her or me. She lifted the latches with shaking hands, and the lid fell back with a dull thud. Inside were books, papers, rolled parchments, and thick leather tubes.

She started sifting through it slowly. Her hand covered her mouth, and tears openly streamed down her face. I tried to make sense of it, not wanting to reach out and unsettle anything. I knew whatever this was, even though it was found on my lands, that it belonged to her.

“It-it is our history.” Her voice was raw and shaky. “The history we lost, the records, the—”

She glanced at me with impossibly dark and wide eyes. “Your pack, they must have saved them for us. You saved them.”

“We don’t know that,” I diminished.

“I do,” she responded. “There is another wall right beyond that must lead to my pack. I am sure of it. This place was built in-between. There is more in there,” she whispered motioning to the trunk, “so much more.”

I looked behind her into the dark space, I could make out the outlines of a few more stacked trunks, and then darkness, the other wall she spoke of.

“Your pack, they saved our history. They preserved it,” she repeated in awe and reverence.

“No,” I shook my head, waiting until her smokey eyes met mine. “We were just holding it until you returned.”