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CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Ryker

“What the fuck?” Tucker breathed.

I had no idea how to answer that, as I didn’t know what to make of the massive cavern below. From somewhere within, the pulsing beat of the increasingly red light revealed the sprawling village tucked beneath the earth.

Then it burst into a vivid red color and again faded to a more pinkish hue. Its pulse continued illuminating the land as it steadily deepened toward red again. It was the only source of light.

What the fuck? was the most appropriate way to describe whatever was happening below.

In between each pulse, the light never dimmed enough to hide the town in shadows, but it faded until dusk settled over the land.

The next pulse brought another flux of light to the land.

At the center of the village, high on a hill, sat a castle; the light came from one of its towers, but I couldn’t see what created it.

Four roads twisted through the town and up the hill. They converged at the castle.

“What is this?” Scarlet whispered.

“I have no idea,” I said.

It was a town; we could all see that, but why it was here or who it belonged to was a mystery I didn’t know how to unravel. Trapped beneath the earth, the village seemed frozen in time as nothing moved below, but when that time was, I didn’t know.

The design of the town and homes was older, but I was far from an architecture or history expert and didn’t know when or if amsirah had ever designed homes like these. And it wasn’t so much the styles that were different, but the vibrant colors of the homes.

Vivid oranges, reds, yellows, blues, and other shades decorated the land. Those colors had withstood the time they’d spent beneath the earth, and the homes created a striking rainbow beneath it.

The homes in Tempest were far duller earth tones with a lot of beige and brown. None of the homes above had colors like these.

But there are lightning rods on the roofs; the homes must have belonged to amsirah .

Some of the buildings had shifted to lean against their neighbors. Others had fallen into a crumpled heap of wood with chimneys, roofs, or lightning rods still poking up from the pile.

Most of the collapsed homes were at the edge of the town. There were a few leaning ones in the center, but overall, the damage lessened as they got closer to the castle.

The castle was only two or three floors and didn’t take up a lot of space. Its location in the town, parapets, and larger size indicated its position of power in this lost village.

Despite an air of abandonment surrounding the place, I waited for someone to emerge from one of the homes and stroll down the street. Nothing moved.

No one peered out the windows. Most had their curtains open, but a few still had drapes pulled over the glass.

In some sections of the road, wagons lay abandoned in the middle of the street. It was as if the horse hauling them had simply vanished, and the vehicles had fallen where they stopped.

“What the fuck?” Tucker breathed again.

As the color built toward that deep red hue again, so did the thrum of power on the air until it vibrated against me. Beside me, Ellery’s hand tightened on mine.

When the pulse happened, a wave of power emanated outward. My skin prickled, and while I didn’t understand what it was, something about it felt oddly familiar.

“Did that feel familiar to anyone else?” I asked.

“Yes,” Ellery breathed, and the others nodded.

No one offered to reveal where they’d felt it before. I suspected they were like me and couldn’t quite place it.

The answer was there, niggling at the back of my mind, but it wouldn’t click into place. We stood there, waiting, but nothing stirred, and no answers revealed themselves as the changing light gradually deepened in color again.

“We have to go down,” Ellery said.

She was right, but I’d far prefer to keep her away from this. I had no idea what was hiding amongst the town and castle.

“How do we get down there?” Scarlet asked.

I leaned over the ledge to examine the wall beneath us. If one of us fell off, it was at least a hundred-foot drop to the ground. Unlike the cavern with the gargoyles, there was no pathway to the village below.

I leaned back to survey the land, but only one option existed. “We have to climb down.”