Hunger Untamed (Feral Warriors #5)(42)

With a sharp exhale, he attempted the musical-sounding words and got two out of his mouth when he lost any memory of what came next.

"What now?" Jag asked behind him.

By way of answer, Kougar turned and gave the wall a massive kick.

"Way to keep a low profile," Jag muttered.

Kougar kicked again. And again. On the third kick, one small section of the wall began to crumble. On the fourth, his foot went through. He could feel a draft of air wafting from the opening. An opening just big enough for a house cat.

"Let's go." Kougar shifted and leaped through the small break in the wall, into darkness, hoping to hell he wasn't leading them into nothingness.

Chapter Eleven

"Mel . . ." Ariana held her friend's hands, willing Melisande free of the magical trap, holding her from sinking farther by the sheer force of her will.

Melisande met her gaze with terrified eyes. "Go, Ariana. Go to the lower chamber. Do what you came for. Beg the queens of old for a second awakening."

"I can't leave you! You're still sinking."

"No, I think it's stopped. And it doesn't matter anyway. I don't matter. Only you. You're the only one who can find a way to save us."

Ariana squeezed her best friend's hands. "You matter to me. You always have, and you know it."

Melisande's mouth softened. "I know. But you may learn something down there that will solve both our problems. Now let go of me, Ariana."

Ariana looked away, her gaze raking the ivory walls, seeing a single set of stairs spiraling upward in one far corner. And none spiraling down.

"I don't know how to get down there. I don't remember."

Melisande whispered the words of the ancients, then motioned behind Ariana with a nod of her head. "There."

Ariana turned to find that a hole had appeared in the wall to the right of the Altar of Life. She eyed it with wariness, then turned back to Melisande.

"I thought you said only I could go into that place."

Melisande shrugged, her blond braid sliding over her shoulder. "I may not be able to go down there, but I've been here with you and your predecessors enough times to memorize the words." Mel squeezed her hands. "Now release me and go, Ariana. I've stopped sinking."

Ariana prayed to the queens who'd come before that Mel was right, then slowly released her grip, watching her friend for any sign of movement.

Nothing else happened. Melisande remained trapped, but sunk no farther.

"Go," Mel urged. "Quickly, Ariana, before anything else goes wrong." Melisande's voice trembled on an alien note of terror. "Before they find us."

With a quick breath, Ariana nodded, then turned and ran to the opening in the wall. Peering inside, she found a twisting stair carved of stone, just like the chamber in the dream. A stair leading into darkness. A chill skated down her spine, but she hesitated for only a second before slipping inside and starting down, using the curving inner wall as her guide.

Little by little, the stair began to lighten until finally she stepped into the chamber of Kougar's dream. The chamber was far smaller than the one above, primitive-looking in comparison, lit only by a single torch hanging in a bracket on the far wall as if waiting for her. While the floor beneath her bare feet was simple unpolished stone, up close the walls were beautiful--white sandstone thickly carved with flowering vines in high relief, floor to ceiling.

Ariana started forward, toward the small pool in the middle of the chamber circled by half a dozen pillars, classic fluted Doric. Plain stone pots the size of large flowerpots had been placed between each of the pillars, pots she remembered lighting in the dream. A scent teased her nose and her memory, an ancient scent of burning incense. With it came the certainty that the temple awaited her light.

Quickly, she strode to the torch and pulled it off the wall. How could she have forgotten this place? She knelt before the first of the pots, dipping the flame carefully inside, watching as the fire caught. Then she rose to repeat the process in the others.

She still remembered her first awakening, coming into her queen's knowledge, though not where it had taken place. She remembered how her mind had filled with the voices and the faces of more than a dozen ancient queens all the way back to Morwun. Queens who'd lived in a time when humans worshipped the immortals as gods and goddesses. When shape-shifters had roamed the Earth in the thousands, battling one another with fangs and swords. A time when the Mage had controlled every natural thing from the weather to the profusion of flowers growing in the fields, and the Daemons had avoided them all, living alone, high in the mountain passes, preying only on those unfortunates who wandered into their realm.

She still possessed a wealth of memories. So many that she'd failed to realize she'd lost any. What worried her was that the ones she'd lost might not help. This might all be for nothing.

When flame glowed from all six pots, she replaced the torch and returned to stand beside the shallow pool, the bottom lit with crystals, the water a rainbow of sparkling color. She'd come to request another awakening, but she didn't know how. Fear fluttered in her stomach.

Forcing down her rising panic, she took a deep breath. The knowledge had to be instinctive. Long ago, she'd stood like this, without any of the queens' memories. Of course, that first time she'd been young, with only a few months of living behind her. Her mind had been open, her instincts all she had to go by. Accessing what to do had been easy and natural. After more than thirteen centuries, that was no longer true.