Page 32 of Queen of Legends and Lies (Dragons of Tirene #4)

Throwing my weight against the door, I shove with all my might. It resists, stubborn and solid, but I refuse to relent. Muscles trembling, I push harder, until finally, blessedly, it grates open with a tortured metallic shriek.

The distorted screech that bounces through the tunnels raises the hair on the back of my neck.

The sound is unsettling. Unnatural.

Forcing down the instinctive urge to flee, I enter the cavernous space. My jaw drops.

Enormous pillars of glittering quartz and granite rise in every direction with decorative crystal spires stretching up and up into infinity like a forest of shimmering stone.

It’s…breathtaking.

Mind-boggling.

I execute a slow spin with my head tipped back and my eyes wide. Trying to grasp the sheer scale of it all is dizzying. The chamber seems to go on forever in every direction, an impossible hidden world beneath the earth.

“Gods above.” My awed, reverent whisper echoes in the stillness.

As I venture farther inside, the weak ball of light putters and dies, plunging me into darkness.

Fear lances through me, and I freeze, heart hammering. But then, gradually, a soft glow builds around me.

Transfixed, I watch as the crystals begin emitting a gentle silvery blue glow, like captured moonbeams. And then, as if rising from their core, the light spreads until the entire cavern shimmers with ethereal radiance.

Otherworldly. Magical. Like nothing I’ve ever seen.

This place…it’s no accident of nature. No random cavern.

It speaks of ancient purpose just beyond my grasp.

What is this chamber? Who created it? Why? The questions burn like the flames in my blood. I need to know more. I have to understand. In my bones, I know that the secrets sleeping here could change everything.

I take advantage of the now-lit space and do another three-sixty.

My breath hitches.

The largest table I’ve ever laid eyes on stands before me. It’s rectangular and crafted entirely of glass, with intricate designs etched into the legs. Beautiful glass chairs accompany it. There’s no dust or debris on the furniture, as if it’s all preserved by magic.

Who gathered here? Ancient Aclarian royalty?

The gods?

The magnitude of that last possibility drives the breath from my lungs. I stumble back, head spinning, trying to wrap my mind around the idea of divinities congregating here. Supping, socializing. Shaping the very fabric of reality, perhaps, with a clap of mighty hands…

Hands that could crush me like an insect, if they chose.

Despite the rabbiting gallop of my pulse, I force my feet to carry me onward. I can’t afford to fall apart. Not here. Whatever this discovery means, I have to see it through. Too much depends on me.

As I venture deeper into the hall, tearing my gaze from the mesmerizing dining table with willful effort, a new wonder snags my attention.

Along the far wall, glinting in the refracted light…

Shelves.

Stacks and stacks of shelves riddled with an eclectic treasure trove of…

I hurry closer, lassoed by a tug of compulsion.

Books!

Hundreds, thousands of ancient tomes and scrolls, their leather spines cracked with age. My scholar’s soul delights at the sight, even as my battle-hardened instincts murmur caution. Forbidden knowledge , a whisper warns. Dangerous secrets.

But, oh, the temptation. My fingers itch to pull one free, to caress the parchment and absorb the wisdom of eons into my mind.

What forgotten magic might lurk in these pages, awaiting a bold hand to unleash it once more?

The secret to magic merging? To dragoncalling?

To the type of blood magic the daughter of Queen Aero used to hide her books in the Royal Archives?

Or the type that kept the Lost City hidden?

I wrestle down the impulse to touch anything and force myself to examine the rest of the cache.

Other relics glimmer on the shelves, too, all eerie and enticing. An ornate golden goblet, gem-studded and smeared with a dark stain. A mirror framed in twisting silver, its surface writhing with vaporous forms. Strange artifacts saturated with power.

Set into the living rock beyond the shelves is a pair of doors. They create towering stone arches, their spans carved with esoteric vines and runes that yawn into impenetrable shadow. Phantom winds sigh from the tunnels beyond, laden with the musk of countless mysteries.

My heart pounds a drumbeat of desperate hope and trepidation. Passages to other realms or eras? Secret ways that could turn the tide of this war and save my kingdom from conquest and ruin?

I have to know.

I lunge for the nearest passage, ramming my shoulder against the unyielding stone.

Scrabbling at the edges, I seek a keyhole, a hidden catch, anything.

But the slab remains solid as the bones of the world deny me entry.

I push harder, a bead of sweat forming on my brow.

I will not be thwarted, not when I’ve come this far.

But no amount of straining shifts the implacable granite. And my angry kicks are ignored just as easily. Though my toe thrums.

Panting, I stagger back, glaring at the doors as if I could compel them open by sheer will. They tower over me in stony silence. An infuriating rebuke.

“Dammit.” I resist the childish urge to kick the offending architecture again. Scrubbing a hand over my face, I turn away, mind whirling as I survey the wonders and worries of the divine hall once more.

What now?

With these tantalizing doorways barred, what path do I have left?

Do I keep searching this impossible place, scour it for any scrap of knowledge that could aid my cause?

Every fighting instinct screams at me to find anything that might serve as a weapon against the drachen.

There has to be a reason Hallr told me to come here.

But a cold voice whispers despair.

If even this chamber of miracles offers no clear salvation, maybe there’s none to be had. Perhaps my kingdom is truly doomed, and all my trials have only delayed the inevitable.

I shake off the crushing fears with a growl of defiance. No. I will not surrender so easily. Not while I still breathe, still burn inside with the need to defend my people. I will keep hunting, keep fighting, until my final moment. And if I fall…I’ll fall facing my enemies, unbowed to the last.

A soft chime rings through the air as my fingers brush the strings of a discarded harp. The unexpected, haunting melody startles me. I stare down at the instrument, wondering how it could still hold music after years of abandonment to time and decay.

Swallowing hard, I glance around, continuing to drink in the eerie scene before me.

The flagstone floor beneath the moss is a riot of color and imagery, depicting the gods themselves in poses both majestic and unsettling. I have a sudden, bone-deep certainty that no mortal hand could’ve shaped those stones, just as no human-made paint could’ve withstood the ages.

“What is this place?” the words slip out unbidden.

“The abandoned Palace of the Gods. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

At the sound of that voice, ice-cold fear snakes around my heart. I’m stuck down here in the bowels of the earth with someone who wants me dead.

And I just handed myself to him on a silver platter.