Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

The higher they climbed into the shadowy mountains, where the trees disappeared and the boulders began, the more she began to experience flashes of images through the goddess card pressed so tight against her heart. An older woman weeping, her arms around a tall, gorgeous younger woman. The younger woman attempting to console her. It was obvious to Adalasia this was Madolina, Sandu’s mother, with Liona in their last moments together. Adalasia wanted to weep with them. She was aware of Sandu sharing her mind and knew he experienced that same intimate vignette with her. That made it even more difficult.

All at once, she felt heat move through her body, like a bright hot sword. The rush of light. Her hair crackled with energy. “We’re close to a portal. We have to look for an entrance to the cave. The coordinates given to you by Luiz have to be close to this, Sandu,” she announced.

She stopped walking, uncaring what the others did. They had flown through the air until they were in the mountains, and then they set down to cast about for signs of demons or the undead. They studied all rock formations carefully.

Her hands went up, and she began to cast in the four directions, chanting softly to Mother Earth and calling for aid against the epitome of evil. In one of the pockets of her coat, she pulled out several keys that appeared to be forged of different colors on the light spectrum. She ran her fingers lightly over them and looked toward a tall dark gray boulder that was covered in dirt and fungus. It was strangely shaped, almost like a coffin. To the left of it was another boulder, a little squattier but in much the same shape, with a square top rather than the pointed one the right boulder had.

The boulders gave off a low sound, one harsh and abrasive to the ear. The note was much lower than most humans would be able to actually identify. She tuned her hearing to the exact sound, following the notes backward. They weren’t just set into the boulders but were inside and continued downward. She could tell by the way the sound faded.

Adalasia stepped close to the boulders, and immediately, Sandu swept her back. The guardians inspected the boulders, moving around them carefully, looking at them from above and even from below the ground. She tried not to be impatient, but there was a sense of urgency now that they were close to the end of their journey. She knew this was where Sandu’s family had been when Sandu had been sent away. She felt it.

It is true. It is starting to come back to me. This is familiar to me. I remember standing here with my father. It is the first time I have remembered him.

He shared the image with her. His father tall, just like Sandu, light hair, long and wild, held back with a leather cord tied at the nape of his neck. The two stood straight, side by side, looking at the exact same boulders she was looking at. The growth on the rock was a bit different, but she could still recognize the boulders. She knew why Sandu didn’t cut his hair. He might wear modern clothes, but he was never going to change his hair, not when he looked so much like his father.

Your father looks like an amazing warrior, just like you, Sandu.

The boulders are not a trap, just have a warning system, Benedek reported.

Sandu answered Adalasia by brushing a caress along the walls of her mind, an intimate gesture between only the two of them. She held on to that as she did her own inspection of the boulders, trying to see what Domizio had when he first realized something was terribly wrong and the threat wasn’t coming from the undead.

Her skin continued to prickle with that odd awareness, a white-hot intense heat that refused to allow her hair to stop crackling or settle. Her feet seemed to find a path of their own, gliding just above the ground rather than touching it, skimming the tufts of grass, moving around the boulders and then stopping between them.

She felt the curious pulsing of light from the keys in her palm. The strange and horrible growling notes emitting from the boulders changed slightly, just enough that the difference registered. This was even deeper, pounding now in her pulse, trying to align with her heartbeat. She automatically protected herself, matching her heartbeat with Sandu’s.

Do you all hear that change in the beat? Definitely a trap now.

The keys were growing warmer in her hand. She looked down at them. The lights were growing brighter. One, a soft pastel purple, was the brightest. She chose that one, lifting it out in front of her and turning directly toward one of the boulders. The purple light spilled over the boulder, but nothing happened. She tried the other boulder. Same thing. She let her breath out, took a step back until she was directly between the two and the light illuminated both. The keyhole was not on either boulder but in the exact center between them.