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Bordered on three sides by towering halls and endless galleries, the temple courtyard was a tangled mess of weeds and wildflowers, roots of fruit trees breaking through the marble tiles of the paths wherever I looked. Rotting leaves clogged the intricate drainage system, and the pentagonal basin in the centre of the garden had an unhealthy green sheen of algae and gods knew what else.

Nothing about the sight suggested that anyone – goddess or mortal – had attempted to tame the chaos in the past five hundred years.

‘Well,’ Naxi said breezily, flinging her bag onto the ground with a gesture that said she was done walking for the day, ‘I think we can safely conclude she isn’t here, hmm?’

I swallowed, squashing a nonsensical sting of disappointment. I should have known better than to expect much of this place, especially after Creon’s report of his first exploration. Even if she’d survived the Mother’s attempt to steal her magic, why would a goddess spend her time here, in the heart of her former glory, without her priestesses or people around?

Even though …

I halted so abruptly Edored bumped into me. ‘Creon?’

He didn’t avoid my gaze now; whatever lay at the heart of his cold silence, at least he wasn’t risking our mission for it. I still didn’t receive more than a curt raised eyebrow, though.

‘There must have been people here, right?’ I said slowly. ‘The day Korok died?’

It was all he needed to understand where I was going.Yes.I didn’t find any bodies last night.

I blinked. ‘And you didn’t mention that?’

Wrong answer, wrong tone; his responding shrug had all the wrong edges to it.It was dark. I may have missed a few of them.And…He gestured at the world below the hill, a breathtaking panorama stretching all the way to the horizon.It’s just as likely that the forest buried them.

‘What was that verb?’ Lyn said, squinting at his hand in fierce concentration.

Bury.He spelled it this time.

‘Oh.’ She released a crabby sigh of understanding. ‘Of course. Like it got rid of that acorn that nearly killed Edored.’

Edored scoffed, but it didn’t come out with the usual vigour. Tared shot him a look that said,muzzle, and his cousin abruptly shut his mouth.

‘I doubt we’ll find out by standing here and gaping at trees,’ Beyla said, disposing of her bag as well. ‘Let’s take a look at the rest of the place. There may be clues. Or at least …’ She pursed her lips. ‘If we don’t find anything here, I don’t know where else we would.’

I didn’t want to think about that possibility, about having to search the entirety of this forest with seven days to go and not the faintest idea where to look. This temple alone was impressively large already – larger than my whole village on Cathra. And what sort of clue were we even looking for? Little chance that Zera had left a quick note in the kitchens with her travelling plans for the next five centuries.

‘Where do we start?’ Tared said, deliberately not talking to Creon, even though Creon was the only member of the company to have seen the place before.

‘Creon?’ Lyn said apologetically.

The wings of the building didn’t seem too interesting.His gestures came slower than usual, easier to follow for onlookers with mere days of practice.Bedrooms, dining halls, sickbay. Central part is the actual temple.

So we piled up our bags below one of the apple trees and made our way to the open doorway on the far side of the courtyard, a towering arch decorated with such lifelike sculptures of braided twigs that I wondered if Zera had created it by changing actual wood into stone. Beyond, a spiralling structure of corridors waited for us, prayer halls and curtain-covered doorways and shadowy alcoves that seemed created for the sole purpose of playing hide and seek. Evening sunlight fell in through clever slits just below the ceiling; the air still reeked faintly of rosewood incense.

No one said much as we slowly progressed into the maze of Zera’s temple, nudging open doors with the utmost caution, examining every nook and niche for whatever traces a goddess might have left. Dust whirled in the golden sunlight wherever we walked. The sound of our feet against the pale green floor tiles echoed hollowly from the ceilings, where flecks of colour betrayed the vivid frescos that must once have decorated the plaster. We passed lengthy inscriptions in Divine Tongue, rotting piles of books that made Lyn whimper, shrines where dead flowers lay scattered between the god-gifts and the half-burned candles … but not a single body and not a trace of divine life.

As if the priestesses and devoted visitors had just walked out centuries ago and never once looked over their shoulders again.

Twilight was settling over the woods when we finally reached the deepest heart of the temple, a dusky, pentagonal room, with at its centre …

A tree.

A single gnarled oak tree, growing straight from the floor, its roots stretching deep below the translucent green of the polished marble tiles. The branches reached all the way to the domed ceiling, where they curled back to fit the confines of the room; although they were heavy with leaves, no fallen twigs or blossoms lay on the floor beneath.

There were no windows, no openings to allow the sunlight inside. Still, the oak looked as healthy as any tree I’d seen in my lifetime, the foliage rustling on some non-existent breeze.

‘Oh,’ Naxi said breathlessly, faltering in the low doorway. ‘Theforest.’

I felt it in the same moment, that invigorating coolness that had washed over me at my first step into Zera’s territory. It was a hundred times stronger here – a whisper of something ancient, somethingpowerful, sliding over my skin like feather-light fingertips and stroking the magic inside me to life.

It did not feel like an invitation here.