The Lost Ruins, Chapter 11

After borrowing a rope, torch, and flint and steel to light it, Elena and Nic moved back towards the ruins. They made sure to give the Waldemar Estate a wide berth, looking for another possible entrance to the ruins. Unfortunately, the Estate was built into the ruins, which made it difficult to fully avoid. Eventually, they were forced to take a quick route across the far corner of the mansion’s courtyard to get around it while still having access to the ruins themselves. They saw no sign of any hostile movements from the direction of the mansion.
The two of them moved into the remainder of the ruins, a loose collection of stone buildings jutting up from the ground and being slowly covered by trees. Elena’s boots crunched over twigs and leaves that had fallen off of the trees over the years. The ground rarely shifted under her feet, as the ruins were surprisingly solid. From what she could see, not many of the ruins were above the ground. The stories that she had heard, as well as the thinning of the trees, seemed to suggest that the ruins continued underground. The two of them began searching for a way to get down below the surface level of the ruins.
After nearly an hour of searching, they found what appeared to be a collapsed wall that gave them access to some kind of narrow corridor that stretched in both directions farther than Elena could see. After a brief internal debate, she picked the right branch, which would lead them away from the Waldemar Estate. Nic followed her without comment. The two of them continued through the ruins, following the narrow path. Enough pieces of the ceiling and walls had fallen out that sunlight continued to shine through, so there was no difficulty seeing as they went. At one point, Elena noticed that the path they were following began to slope downwards. As she followed the slope, she noticed that the walls and floor were no longer the solid rock that they had been up above. When she moved closer to the wall to look, she found that they were made of some kind of grey material that was not quite stone and not quite metal. She pointed this out to Nic, who shrugged.
“None of the Syrneth ruins I’ve ever been in have been made of this,” he admitted.
“Neither have any of the ones I’ve been in.” Elena felt herself growing excited. “We may be on to something new! Let’s keep going!”
After a few more minutes of walking downwards, the light leaking into the corridor from the sun began to wane. Elena suspected that they were starting to get under the trees again, or perhaps deeper underground. She and Nic paused to light their torches before continuing. They moved further into the ruins, following the light they carried with them. After a few dozen more feet, Elena noticed the writing on the walls. While she could not read the language, she recognized them instantly as the Syrneth language. She stepped up to the nearest one and ran a finger along it. The writing was etched in the wall, ensuring that it would remain over the untold eons since the Syrne had walked these halls.
“I have to copy these down,” Elena said. She handed her torch to Nic, who took it with a faint smile. Elena retrieved her notebook from her satchel – taking a moment to silently praise Theus that the vampirs had left it there when they had disarmed her – and began to sketch out the writings. Despite many attempts over the years, no scholars had been able to decipher the Syrneth language. Any writings would help with their effort. She made sure to note down the details of what she was seeing, especially where the writings were and anything that might serve as a context clue. She was acutely aware that she was likely the first explorer to be seeing these markings, and the thought filled her body with fire.
“If only my father could have seen these,” Elena muttered to herself.
“Was he an explorer too?” Nic asked.
“No. He was a scholar. Syrneth things were his hobby. He was always reading about some set of ruins. It made me want to go and actually see them. Why just read about a thing when you can experience it for yourself?”
If Nic had anything else to say in response to that, she missed it, as she had just spotted a particularly clear set of writings. She sprang off down the corridor towards them.
“Look at these!” she crooned as she began making a charcoal rubbing of one of the inscriptions. “They’re so well preserved! This could change everything we know about the language!”
Nic chuckled quietly. “You’re worse than Frida.” He was speaking of Elena’s colleague that had referred her to him.
“I find that hard to believe.” Elena continued making her rubbing. “I’ve seen her when she gets excited.”
“Trust me, this is worse.” His voice held a light, teasing tone.
“Come on, I bet there’s more if we keep going!” Elena carefully added her rubbing to her notebook and took her torch back. She sprang off down the corridor, feeling lighter than she had felt through the entire trip. The fact that her friends were still somewhere up in the forests lurked at the back of her mind, but she did not allow it to drag her down.
The two of them continued down the corridor, Elena occasionally stopping to make sketches of the Syrneth writing on the walls. She forced herself to write smaller than she wanted to, hoping that she would still have space in her notebook for whatever else they might find.
“Thanks for talking me into this,” she said after perhaps an hour. “I wouldn’t have seen any of this if you all didn’t convince me to come down here.”
Nic was silent for a few moments. “I’m glad that we did,” he said at length. “Elena, there is something that I feel that I should tell you.”
“What is it?” Elena was too engrossed in a sketch to turn to look at him.
“I… well, I didn’t come on this expedition for the ruins.”
“I’d have been surprised if you did.”
“I actually came on the expedition to kill the vampirs in the Waldemar Estate.”
That was enough to give Elena some pause. “Did you plan on taking them all on alone? That seems risky.”
“No.” Nic paused again. “If I’m being honest, my plan was to use all of you to destroy them.”
Now Elena turned to face him. Something that he left unsaid when he spoke caused her to break her concentration to talk with him. “When you say, ‘use us,’ you mean…?”
Nic winced. “I mean that I was going to use you as an excuse to get through the dangers of the Walder, then have all of you work with me to eliminate the vampirs. And then, if none of you were in a condition to go explore the ruins afterwards, well…”
Elena stared at him, feeling like the world had suddenly lurched sideways. It was as though a cold dagger had just been pushed through her heart. “You…”
“I know, it was a horrible plan. I should never have even considered it for a second. I just…” He sighed. “I had discovered that someone that I have been hunting for a very long time had ties to the vampirs in the Estate. I was desperate to track him here. You were the first chance that I got that would also make it possible to survive an encounter with all of the vampirs here.” He looked away from Elena, unable to meet her gaze. “I was a fool. My desire for revenge led me to do stupid, inhuman things. I’m sorry.”
As Nic finished speaking, the only sounds in the corridor were the faint noises made by the burning torches. Elena studied Nic, giving herself time to think. Everything that he had told her seemed to be true, and as she thought back on the beginning of the expedition, she could almost believe it. “What changed?” she asked after a few moments.
Nic returned his gaze to her. “You did. I watched you trying to care for every single person that came with you. I saw how their deaths and wounds affected you. You did everything you could to try and keep them safe. It reminded me of why I became an Ungetümjäger in the first place. It was about revenge, sure, but mostly because I swore that no one else would ever have to suffer like I did because of the monsters in the world.”
“Sorry, Ungetümjäger?”
“Monster hunter.” Nic stared at the flame on his torch for a second. “Up above, when you decided to give up everything you came here for just to protect those of us who were left… I was impressed. I don’t think I’d have been able to make that decision.”
Elena stood in silence. She had not expected such a display of honesty from Nic. She supposed that it made sense for him to not be very open with his feelings when he was expecting many of those around him to die at the end of the journey, but hearing it all from him still seemed out of character for him. She thought back to all of the times that she had decided to blindly trust him. Her heart twisted unpleasantly as she realized that he had just been using her, but beneath that feeling, something else was there. Despite his intent, he had worked to keep them safe. He had been working to protect them, even while using them. A faint smile broke across Elena’s face. She doubted that Nic was as bad as he thought he was. It didn’t fit with his actions. Down beneath whatever pain had driven him into such a desire for revenge, he was still a good man.
“At the beginning of the journey, I think I just trusted you because I didn’t know anything about Eisen.” Elena realized that her gaze had drifted to somewhere behind Nic, and she returned it to his face. “At some point, though, I think I started to trust you because I could. Even though something seemed off to me, I still decided somewhere inside myself that you deserved my trust. You’re not as heartless as you think, Nic. And, for what it’s worth, I still trust you. You’ve done enough to prove to me that you’re just as deserving of my trust as Marcus is.” She laughed, once. “I think telling me all of this actually helped that a bit.”
Nic returned Elena’s faint smile. “Are you familiar with the Eisen term ‘Rüken’?”
“I don’t believe that I am.”
“It means ‘back.’ Your Rüken is someone that can stand behind you in battle, and you don’t need to look behind you. You know that they will be there to protect you. It’s a kind of trust that goes deeper than anything else. Once I awakened from my revenge blindness, I saw you giving me your trust and acting on it. You’re dependable in ways not many others are. When you trusted me to save Marcus in the Estate and were able to understand what I needed in order to succeed, you showed me that you are deserving of that trust. For what it’s worth, I consider you a Rüken.”
“I… I’m honored.” Elena felt her heart skip a beat at the realization of what that meant. She knew enough about Nic to know that such trust was not something he gave out easily. “Actually, honored may not fully express it. Thank you. And I’d most certainly call you my Rüken as well.”
Nic gave her a small, formal bow. “I will not violate this honor ever again.”
Elena imitated his bow, throwing just a bit of Avalon noble flourish into it. “I don’t think that you ever did. Now, let’s keep going. There are still other things to find down here.”
She turned and continued down into the ruins. She heard Nic fall into step behind her, and the two of them maintained a companionable silence, content just by each other’s presence.