I shook my head, "No, we can look around more. This was my idea after all!" I gave a smirk and lightly punched her shoulder.
She turned to me and did the same; her laughter echoing around the room. Gathering my courage, I followed her down the dark stairwell into what I both hoped and dreaded was the dungeon.
Abby kept the lantern steady as we descended the steps. It was warmer down here than up above, but only just. The first snow did little to freeze this deep, and moisture gathered in rivulets between the stones of the walls and in puddles on the steps. Echoes of dripping water reached our ears and broke the oppressive silence. And then Abby broke it more.
"I wonder if there's a secret room down here?"
I gathered up some courage to speak in the musty air. I probably got it from Abby radiating her own infinite supply. "Wouldn't the church have found it? Inquisitor Finley seemed like he could notice anything when he talked to me."
"Wait? When did you get a chance to talk to him? I only saw him, his retinue, and his funny looking hat at a distance."
"Yeah, he came by and talked to me and my family. Didn't he talk to every family in the neighborhood?"
"Now that you mention it, Nan had told me to stay away from him the other day and she seemed pretty worried. I was probably with Miss Meissner at my apprenticeship when he stopped by."
"And you're only bringing this up now!?" I exclaimed as we hit the bottom of the steps. We faced a small ruined alcove ahead of a row of cells leading into darkness.
"Well yeah. Not like he'd stick around here." Abby stomped in a puddle. "He'd get his robes wet."
I looked around half expecting him to walk out of the shadows. "Do you think Nan's going to get in trouble for heresy?"
"Nah, she's craftier than anyone I know."
"Yeah, but Inquisitor Finley is really scary. It's like he has this sort of presence around him and I could swear he was peeking into my head or something."
"Probably his face and his hat. You could use that guy's cheekbones to butcher a chicken. I bet he's got nothing on Nan." She took the lead and we started to walk down the hallway, looking past rusted bars into empty cell after empty cell.
I actually had to hold back a laugh at the idea of our big local butcher, Harvald, lifting the reedy Inquisitor and using his face to cut meat. "I guess he's just creepy looking."
"Yeah, and Lord Carvalon proves you don't have to look like a creep to be one," Abby giggled. "Have you seen the other girls fawning over his slimy blond pretty-boy ass?"
"Weren't his family old enemies of the church? I guess you'd really have to be some kind of suck up to act like he does."
"Yeah, I wonder who really calls the shots in Linthel. Heck what about all of Edath? We may be part of the Empire since the unification war, but I'd wager that the Church—" Abby cut off suddenly.
A loud crash came from the end of the hallway and both of us froze. I turned to run, but Abby put a hand on my shoulder. "Look!"
I followed the lantern's light and saw a collapse at the back of one of the cells. Inside I could barely make out a room of some sort.
"O-okay, but w-what made the wall collapse?"
"Maybe the church people searched all the walls and knocked something loose? This place is soaked through and old as dirt, anyway." Abby kicked a cell bar and it disintegrated into rust fragments. Despite her conviction, her voice wavered and her hand holding the lantern shook.
"W-we can check it out. If something was down here and wanted to get out, it'd be on us already." My voice was worse than hers, but I managed to steady her hand with mine.
Abby grasped my other hand and wordlessly pulled me close. "Thanks, Zach." After a moment she added, "We really have to figure out your real name."
Abby's face was close to mine. Her beautiful green eyes were still wide with fear and my heart thumped in my chest. I didn't know how to feel about Abby. It's not like I didn't like her like that, but she was always just a friend. Also, I knew she liked girls, but I couldn't—wouldn't—wasn't—
She wordlessly leaned forward and up toward me, and without thinking I leaned down and in toward her. Our lips met in a kiss. My first. For perhaps a second, we held together, before we both pulled quickly back.
"Zach, I-I'm sorry, I just…" Abby looked at me pleadingly and trailed off.
I gently touched my lips with a finger. I felt tears forming. Abby looked back at me, her expression twisting to fear, as her own tears started to form.
"No, I—you—we—it's…" I paused for a moment and took a deep breath. "Abigail Hunter!" I shouted and she snapped to attention. "It's okay. I like you. A lot. But I'm—and you're—and…" Just like that, my bravado dissipated.
"And you're the girl I think I'm falling in love with, Zacharias Miller." Abigail had tears in her eyes, but she looked at me with surety in those green pools. Somehow their color seemed to come through even in the dark.
For a long moment we just stared into each other's eyes, still in a half embrace with the lantern pointing its light away from us.
"I still don't know what my name is," I whispered.
"It's okay, we have plenty of time."
"But I—"
"No buts. I like you and that's that." Abby shook her head and cleared the tears from her eyes. "We, uh, should go check out this cool secret room."
"Okay," I nodded. I was happy. A bit numb, but a happy kind of numb, like a weight I'd never noticed was gone from my shoulders and I didn't quite know how to live without it.
We somehow made it into the room behind the collapsed wall. I'd imagine by ducking and walking in, but my mind wasn't really all there at the moment. The room inside was disappointingly bare and small, although some part of me was relieved that it was mostly empty. The walls were rough-hewn stone and mortar, wet with condensation, and there seemed to be no doors. A single pedestal sat in the middle of the small space, on top of which was the rusted out remains of an ornate metal cage. Inside was a small wooden box, largely rotten and with rusted hinges. I'm glad it wasn't a cell of some sort since I doubted I could handle human remains right now.
Before I could say anything, Abby reached in and took the box from the cage. Nothing happened.
"Whoa. I wonder why they kept this here. What do you think the cage was for? It has all these symbols on it." Abby held the box unopened and examined the cage.
"Why did you take the box out? What if the cage was keeping it in there?"
"Like it's some kind of dangerous magical artifact?" Abby's tone was mirthful, but she held the box a bit more carefully. "I doubt that rusted pile has held magic in a long time."
I gave her a serious look and pointed to where the box had been sitting. "Yeah, okay sure. The box was in a cage that maybe had runic magic, and we're in the basement of a fort from when Edath was a heathen nation. A heathen nation known to practice dark magics and consort with demons. And that box clearly wasn't contained before we walked in. All that doesn't exactly make me feel safe."
"You know that's Church propaganda, right?"
"Okay, but how much of it is propaganda? Your nan's always been tight-lipped about how the old rituals worked. And she hasn't ever talked about working with demons."
Abby opened the box. "See, it's fine!" She reached inside and lifted up an ornate amulet depicting some strange symbol. The amulet and chain were made of a metal that looked not quite like tarnished silver.
"Abby!"
"What? Okay, fine. It does look kinda creepy."
"No shit. It looks demonic."
"Demonic how? What do you think it represents?" she held it closer to me.
"Wait, what do you mean 'represents'?"
"You know! Nan's told us that demons are held together by a bad emotion and can feed on it, remember? Like a spirit of the land is by a place. They're not always like people, but the ones that are, aren't always driven by the sins that made them. Do you think it looks like some kind of bad emotion?"
I didn't know what to think, so I didn't reply. Despite my misgivings I took a closer look at what she held. The amulet was a finely filigreed starburst pattern of six points with concentric symmetry whirling out from its center like a vortex.
"I don't know what it looks like," I answered honestly.
"Me neither, but it's really pretty, isn't it?"
"But what if it's demonic?"
"What if it is? I doubt there's a demon in here. Mr. Sharpface would've sensed it through the wall. Probably."
"Okay, so what do we do with it?" I asked Abby.
"Put it on?"
"What, no!"
"I think it'd look pretty on you if it got cleaned up." Abby's look held honesty in it, "But you're probably right to get it checked out. Why don't we take it to Nan and have her look at it?"
"Sure, I guess. We can go before I head to my apprenticeship tomorrow morning."
"That's crazy early!"
"Well, I want to know if it's safe. What if it's slowly corrupting us?" I gave the amulet a hard stare.
"Nan might still be up actually," Abby replied. "She said she had something she wanted to work on tonight."
I blinked.
"What? If I told you, you would worry. And I don't think she wants to be interrupted."
"Fine," I sighed.
"Seriously though! We found a real secret room and a real artifact! It was totally worth coming out here!"
"Yeah, I guess it was." I smiled, but I suspected the artifact wasn't what made this trip special for either of us.
"Let's get back and talk to my nan then." Abby held out the necklace toward me. "At least try holding it; it doesn't feel cursed or anything."
I took the amulet after a moment of hesitation. It was heavy, but nothing felt off about it. "You want me to have this don't you?" I asked.
"Yeah! Silver would look really good with your eyes and hair. Think of it as my gift for your next birthday!"
I looked down at Abby's honest, happy expression and felt a smile grow unbidden across my face. "I will."
She looked at me expectantly, so I continued, "But I'm not wearing it until your nan confirms that it's safe."
"Good enough for me!" Abby's smile was at least as big as my own.
Our trip out of the ruins was free of the oppressive atmosphere the stones seemed to have only an hour ago. We chatted about finishing our apprenticeships and about what we could do to help with my transition. Abby even insisted that she wanted be there for support when I told my parents, and I was relieved and readily agreed. Before then, I needed a name, but so far, we hadn't been able to think of a name between the two of us. I wanted it to start with "Z" and Abby agreed, but we just couldn't come up with something.
Our conversation was fading as we exited the ruins, stepping back into the cold night air. Over the trees, back in the direction of Linthel, we saw a bright orange glow suffusing the horizon.