The Lost Ruins, Chapter 14

The flames were still flickering while Nic knelt beside Elena, carefully bandaging the cut in her side. He was sporting multiple wounds himself, but he refused to treat any of them until he had seen to Elena. In his words, “None of mine are that dangerous. Yours should probably have knocked you down by now.”
She winced as he tied the last of the bandages in place. She lowered her shirt back into place and experimentally flexed her arm. She still had almost her entire range of motion, but decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to try too hard. She glanced over Nic, seeing that he had been correct about his wounds. Most of them had already stopped bleeding, though his nose still looked bad.
“Thanks,” Elena said. “For all of it. The duel, the patch-up, and for understanding my plan.”
“I’m glad you came up with one.” Nic turned his gaze to where Sonya’s remains were. His sword had returned to its ordinary color, still looking somewhat tarnished, but definitely cleaner than it had before the battle at the Estate. “My only regret is that now I won’t ever know what the connection between these creatures and Mathias is.”
“I saw how you reacted to the name back in the Estate. What does that name mean to you?”
Nic stared into the distance, the light from the flames flickering in his eyes. “Mathias is the man I’ve been hunting for so long,” he said. No trace of emotion was in his voice.
“What did he do to you?” Elena wondered. “What made you so determined to find him?”
Again, Nic hesitated before answering. He seemed to be gathering his strength. “A long time ago, I was engaged to be married. Her name was Anna. We were happy and getting ready for our life together. One day, I was out hunting, and I came back home to find that the house had been attacked. Everything was in shambles, and a trail of blood and footsteps led away from the house. Anna was gone. I followed the trail as quickly as I could. It led me to a cave.”
Elena barely dared to breathe as Nic told his story. She got the distinct feeling that this was not a story he told people.
“That cave was had been converted into a dwelling,” Nic continued. “Inside that dwelling, I found two people. One was the creature Mathias. A powerful vampir who, until that point, I had never seen before. The other person… used to be Anna.”
“Used to be?” Elena’s voice was barely louder than a whisper.
Nic gave a single nod. “In the time that I had taken to get there, Mathias had turned her into a vampir as well. She was under his control. She tried to seduce me, to get close enough to me to drain me of my blood, but I saw what was going on. She attacked me, and I had to fight her. Eventually, I…” He swallowed hard.
“Eventually, I killed her.”
Elena found that her hand had gone to her mouth completely of its own accord.
Nic continued as though he hadn’t noticed. “By that time, Mathias was gone. I tracked him for three days straight before I lost his trail. I’ve been tracking him ever since, but it’s like trying to track a shadow. At times, he almost doesn’t seem to exist. That was when I started to hunt monsters. I figured that I would need to get better at it before I could beat him. Anna had only been a vampir for a few hours at most when I fought her, and she nearly killed me. If I was to have any chance at killing him, I would need to be better. And I swore that no one else would ever have to go through what I had to go through.”
“Oh, Nic…” Elena put her hand on his shoulder, and she felt all of the strength go out of him in an instant. He sunk sideways, leaning against her. She took his weight without complaint, wrapping her arms around him. It felt odd to do so, but only for a few moments. He did not cry, but Elena could feel how vulnerable he was in that moment.
They stayed in that position for several minutes while Nic composed himself. Eventually, he took a deep breath, and all of his strength flowed back into his body. “Thank you,” he told her. He rose to his feet and helped her up as well.
“Nic, if there’s anything that I can do to help…”
“You’ve already done it.” Nic took another deep breath, more vitality flowing back into him. “I didn’t realize how relieving it would be to tell someone else about that. I think I’ve been carrying that alone for too long.”
“I’m glad that I could help with that, but that’s not enough. I’m going to help you find him. I’ve got a lot of merchant contacts. I’ll start having them keep an ear open for rumors about him. I promise that I will help you find him.”
Nic smiled at her. “Thank you. Now, to turn our attention to more immediate matters, should we continue to explore?”
Elena glanced around the chamber. From where she stood, she couldn’t see any other exits besides the one they had used to get in. “Where would we go?” she asked. Something else occurred to her. “How did Sonya get in?”
Nic pointed upwards. “There’s a hole up there. She dropped in from up there. I saw it after she landed. It’s not a way we can get out.”
“Well, I guess we go back, then. Once we get to the place where we entered the ruins, we can decide what to do from there.”
The two of them made their way back in the direction that they had come from, retracing their steps with care. They encountered no unexpected surprises, and even the floating corridor was kind enough to leave their feet firmly planted on the ground this time around. Elena was glad. She did not feel like trying to navigate the hazard again. By this point, fatigue was beginning to set in, partially due to the length of time since she had gotten a full sleep, and partially due to her wounds. All she wanted to do now was return to camp and sleep.
By the time that Elena and Nic made it back to the collapsed wall that they had used to get into the ruins, the sun was beginning to set once more. From its position, Elena estimated that they still had about three hours before full nightfall. After a quick word with Nic, they decided to return to the camp to let the rest of their party know that they were still alive.
As they reached the makeshift camp, they found that the other members of their company were in better condition than they had been when Elena and Nic had left. Richard was sitting up now, and Marcus had regained consciousness. His face was still ashen, but he was at least talking. Everyone was eager to hear of Elena’s discoveries, and she pulled out her notebook and the artifacts to show Marcus. When she handed one of the ear-rings to Marcus, he held it reverently.
“I knew it,” he said. “Elena Hunt, the first explorer to retrieve artifacts from the Walder.”
“And now we need to decide if we’re going back down there,” Elena said. “Problem is, the sun is setting.”
“The Spectral Prison won’t be potent enough to maintain its protection,” Nic observed.
“We don’t have any of it left,” Lena said with an apologetic look. “We probably layered it on a bit thick.”
“Don’t worry; that’s what it was for.”
“Could we all take refuge in the ruins?” Kataya asked. Elena shook her head. “Even if we could guarantee that we won’t walk into another trap down there, there is no way to keep the vampirs from coming down after us. Sonya made it down there, and if there are any of them left, they will probably be out for revenge.”
“They would be able to get down there, and we would be at a disadvantage,” Nic agreed. “It’s a bad idea.”
Elena turned her gaze upwards, to the hill that marked the main way out of the area. “I think it’s time to leave this place,” she said. She allowed a smile to twist her lips. “Besides, my notebook is almost full.”
“We’ll just have to come back, then,” Marcus said, though his attempt at bravado was marred somewhat by the weak cough at the end of it.
Elena stood up. “Come on, everyone. It’s time to go home.”