Page 5

I get up and pack away my bed roll, and as I do, I take a quick drink from the wine gourd sitting beside my things. It's the brew given to me by the villagers of Metsova, and it's already nearly gone. The dream of unlimited free-flowing wine was cut short all too quickly. A damn tragedy.

I take one more swig. Unfortunately, there's no way around it. It's a two-swig kind of morning.

My head is clear, finally, and I get up to join my companions.

My friends.

The fact that I've allowed myself such a fondness for Kalistratos, Tyler, and Alyx... It's dangerous. I've already destroyed too many lives with my very existence.

And it's for this reason that I willneverallow myself a mate.

With a wave of my hand, I draw a cover of earth across our fire's last smoldering embers, smothering it cleanly and discreetly. The three of us then work to quickly cover any other evidence of our camp, brushing branches over where the ground has been flattened by our bed rolls. Tyler carefully weaves the protective wrap around his glimmering phoenix egg and ties the bundle tohis body like a swaddled child. Kalistratos helps him, then gently presses his palm to the egg after the task is complete. They both share a look—a tender, loving glance that lasts but a second. I turn away, not wanting to intrude on their moment.

I can't deny that I feel an ache for what they share. Physical desires are one thing—they can be easily sated with a trip to a brothel. But the journey of love—of sharing yourself with another person... That's something far different.

I understand these needs can't be erased or suppressed. I must be content to experience them vicariously, as a spectator, and to allow the rawness of that longing to serve as some small atonement for the things I've done.

The smell of the ocean drifts across us, and with it the faintest roar of waves crashing against a rocky coast. We've camped on the precipice of our destination—the town of Aktaia, once known for its skilled flyer shipwrights.

It's not long before we've closed the remaining distance to the Aktaia gorge. The road is still there, though abandoned and overgrown. I lead our group, with Tyler in the center and Kalistratos at the rear. We pass the wreckage of a large multi-oared trireme lying broken with the splintered belly of its hull facing the sky. A snapped mast juts from the ground with the last tattered shreds of a sail hanging from the beams.

"What happened here?" Tyler asks.

"The wrath of an angry sea god," I say. "A storm unlike any known in the Gnosis records struck this coast and leveled the town two years ago."

"Wait, you're telling me this boat here was tossed up from the ocean?" he says in disbelief. "No fucking way."

"Indeed," I reply. "The flyers were often stored in caves after construction or before repair. I'm counting on something being left over and sheltered from the worst of the damage."

"I don't like this," Kalistratos mutters as we enter the shattered remnants of the town. "If we'd gone after Jackson in our phoenix forms, we could've caught up with them quickly. Look at this place. It's a ruin."

"Just a little reminder that you were on the brink of dying," Tyler says to Kalistratos. "We were in no shape to go after that airship, even though we all wanted to."

The wind whistles through piles of timber and rubble that were once dwellings. I move carefully from the overgrown road and walk close to the rubble, keeping my senses sharp for anything that might be of use to us—or a danger. A flock of startled sea birds darts out and takes to the sky. Everything is covered in a layer of mud, salt and bird droppings. I nudge a clay pot with my foot, rolling it over to see that it's broken on its opposite side. There are parts of flyers everywhere—intricately crafted components of iron and bronze jutting out from the dirt along with pieces of broken hulls and decks.

As we continue through the area, it becomes quite clear that anything of use has either been completely pulverized or picked through by other scavengers. But what we're looking for wouldn't be here at the forefront of the town, where access is easiest. To our left stretches the ocean, with a boundary of a steep gorge separating us from the shoreline. A part of the town lies right along the edge of the gorge, now nothing but skeletal wooden frames jutting out from stone foundation cut into the rock.

"Cheesus," Kalistratos says, taking a moment to peer over. His toe hits a stone that clatters across the precipice and drops for a long time before disappearing into the churning surf below. "These people must've truly pissed off whichever god watches these waters."

The destruction of Aktaia is just another notch in a long record of dark happenings throughout Circeana. I've witnessed enough of it in my travels—the increase of slave traders, the emergence of more and more monsters, especially in regions that have long been considered safe... But it's through all the records and stories I've ingested in my studies that I've been able to gather a greater picture of what has been happening in our realm, stretching back generations.

Tyler crawls on his belly to take a peek. "Ugh. I don't like this," he mutters. Then something catches his eye, and he points at where the gorge splits into two. "Hey! Look, do you see that? There's like a staircase down there."

"That's where we're headed," I say.

Making our descent through the ruins feels like climbing down the skeleton of some ancient sea creature. Along the gorge's walls, stone buildings cling to the rock like barnacles, their foundations still gripping the face despite the destruction wrought by the storm. This area seems to have fared better than the area above.

"The wrights used to launch their creations right off the edge of the gorge," I say, “and then fly them down to the caves below. Quite the spectacle, I've heard. They used to have a festival every year."

"Why didn't they rebuild?" Tyler says. "Seems insane to just abandon an entire town. Where did everyone go?"

"A good question," I say. "I don't know."

"So he doesn't know everything," Kalistratos says. "You had me convinced you had all the knowledge of the world rattling around inside your head."

Why did they abandon the town? The answer must be simple. The possibilities tumble through my mind like pieces of a puzzle that doesn't quite fit together. Important tools and equipment could have been lost, yes. We'd seen cypress groves on our approach that were young and unestablished—perhaps the groves that had supplied their woodwork had been too damaged to utilize. Yet plenty of towns have recovered from worse.

The wind picks up as we descend the path cut along the rock face, whistling through the empty stone doorways of the ghosttown, carrying the mournful sound of wooden beams creaking and shredded canvas flapping. A crab scurries out from beneath a rock, but otherwise, there is no sign of life.