Page 24 of Four Ruined Realms (The Broken Blades #2)

Mikail

Lake Cerome, Khitan

Well, that was interesting.

We get to our feet, armed and alert. Aeri has a throwing knife in her hand, Euyn is searching for a target with his bow, and my hand is on my sword, but there’s nothing. And that’s exactly the problem. How did the priest simply vanish?

We run to the spot where we saw him last, no longer worried about stealth. I’m a little concerned Royo will smash right through this ice with his heavy footsteps. It’s a good thing the lake has been frozen for nearly a month now.

“I thought he stopped right around here,” Aeri says. “Where did he go?”

I thought so, too, but that can’t be. There’s only snow and ice. We have to be missing something—people don’t just disappear.

When he vanished, I thought he’d fallen through, but if that were the case, there would be a hole. Yes, the lake would freeze back over, but not instantly. I bend down and feel the ice with my hand. It’s so thick that I can’t see the water below. If he fell in, there would be a break, at least a thin spot, and there’s nothing.

Euyn tracks along the ice, and the others continue to look around.

“There has to be something we’re missing,” I say.

I glance at the side of the hill in the distance. I wander toward it, but it’s not possible that there’s a door there. We are twenty or thirty yards from the shore. Even if the priest moved like Aeri, he still couldn’t have made it to the hillside. I look straight up, thinking maybe he stepped on a trap, a lift, but it’s just gray sky and snow.

“If I didn’t want anyone to be able to get into my temple, I’d disguise the door,” Aeri says. She’s speaking more to herself than to me as she walks around. “Wait. Mikail, can I see the key?”

I take it out of my pocket and hand it to her. She weighs it in her palm, looks at the key again, and then at me.

“It’s not jade,” she says.

“What?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Sorry, I thought it was jade when you first showed it to us, but it’s not. It’s not emerald, either—the weight and color are off. This almost feels hollow.” She moves her hand up and down, and then her eyes grow wide. “It could be veritite.” She holds it up to the sky. “Yes, I think it is.”

Aeri raises the key in the air and then strikes it hard against the ice. Like she’s trying to break into the lake.

“Gods on High, what are you doing?” At the last second, Euyn remembers to aim his bow away from her.

Just as the words leave his mouth, the ice shakes and the perfect corners of a glass door come into view, along with a green keyhole. Royo and Sora jump back. Euyn studies it intensely. I shake my head.

Stars, that’s impossible.

There was nothing there before. I’m certain of it. I felt the ice—there was no crack, no keyhole. But now there’s a door and a lock, clear as day.

I stare at Aeri. Her eyes are wide with wonder. How did she know to do that?

“Should I even ask?”

She glances at me, tilting her head. “You’ve never seen veritite?”

“No.”

“Strange,” she says. “Anyhow, it’s a rare stone but not a gem. It’s known as a truth seeker—it will reveal other stones of the same material. The lock and edges must also be made of veritite. It’s really clever.”

Aeri leans down and puts the key in the lock. It’s a perfect fit. She exhales and turns her wrist. I hold my breath and wait for something incredible.

Nothing happens. At all.

“It’s…stuck.” She knits her eyebrows, removes the key, and tries again, but the result is the same. “That’s weird.”

I take a knee and try. I expect the key to turn, but I can’t get it to move, either. I try to the left and right, and then I remove it and try again with the key upside down. It makes no difference. I wonder if the lock froze shut or if the priest blocked it.

Royo wanders over. “What’s wrong?”

“We can’t get the lock to open,” Aeri says.

He leans down, and I move for him to try. Maybe muscle will help. If not, we’ll need him to smash through the door. But at least we know where the door is now—it’s in the middle of the lake.

Royo puts his hand on the key, turns it, and the lock clicks. The thick, frosted-glass door opens straight down, revealing white stairs that lead to pitch blackness.

Stars.

I take a step back, blinking hard. Then I shake my surprise.

If the priest used the same kind of key, it explains him disappearing. All we saw was ice while he went through the doorway.

But…why did the key turn for Royo? I tried it every which way.

“After you,” Aeri says to me. Royo looks right at me and arches an eyebrow.

Neither wants to be first through a door in the middle of a lake, and I can’t say I blame them.

I pause and consider whether Aeri is setting us up again. She knew where to meet us and figured out how to locate the door and use the key, and that all seems just as coincidental as finding the key in the first place. But we did tell her we would be at the lake. And she seemed shocked that the key worked.

No, she’s just a very good gem thief.

At least, I hope.

I go down the stairs first, with Euyn behind my shoulder with his bow. Killing the zaybears united us again, the way violence always seems to. His beliefs are, at times, appalling, but they are also evolving. Or that’s what I want to believe.

The girls follow, and then Royo is last. He closes the door behind us with a loud thud.

What the fuck.

All four of us stop and stare at him. Then it occurs to me that it is light enough inside to see one another, somehow.

Well, now that we completely lack the element of surprise, I draw my sword and take the marble staircase down. The stairs are slippery, but it is almost like the white stone is lit from within. The staircase continues for a great distance, slightly curving. I can’t see the end, and I dislike that. It feels like an obvious trap, and hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I’m surprised when we make it to the bottom of the stairs without being attacked. When we come out, we’re inside the glass dome of the Temple of Knowledge. Which means we are in a courtyard underwater.

It’s…incredible.

I never believed the myths about the gods creating structures on earth, because why would deities worry about architecture, but as I look around, this place changes my mind. While I’m certain men built the King’s Arena, I can’t see how people made this. I touch the glass of the side of the dome, wondering how it holds. There is dark water all around us, and glowing fish swim by, but we are dry. In front of us stands an astonishing white marble temple. Torches blaze, illuminating it from within. Small trees grow in the courtyard, lampposts light the space, and none of this should be possible.

“How?” Aeri whispers. She delights at the fish going by, and Royo nearly smiles at her joy.

Even Sora, who isn’t herself, looks around, violet eyes filled with wonder.

The second I saw her face, I knew Seok must have sold her sister—or worse. I regret not telling her that the southern count was in Khitan. I should have warned her, but I didn’t think he’d be at the banquet. Zeolin had said it was only a rumor. Still, guilt gnaws at me for allowing her to be blindsided.

Thoughts of Zeolin bring me back to reality. He was the one with a key to this temple, and he shouldn’t have had it. It was too convenient that I found it. I snap out of it.

“Stay together,” I whisper.

I shake off my awe and observe. I don’t trust how easy it was to get inside the temple. Euyn would say the gods are on our side, but we’ve been nearly eaten a few times too many for that to be true.

We approach the temple carefully. Euyn picks up on my skepticism and scans with his bow ready. Royo has his axe on his shoulder.

All of the Temples of Knowledge have elements of the four original realms—the white marble from Wei, the gilded domes of Khitan, the fountains of Yusan, and the wooden doors of Gaya. Gaya used to be home to the tallest black wood trees in the world. At the end of the Festival of Blood, Joon decimated the ancient forest.

But these doors are older than the massacre. The black wood reaches thirty feet high and is elaborately carved, depicting the mythical tree of knowledge.

As we approach, I pull the brass handle, and we step inside. But as soon as I open the door, I realize something is terribly wrong.