Page 56 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

LYDIA

Lydia’s knees shook beneath her as Baird helped her to her feet, the giant’s eyes wide as he asked, “What did you do?”

“Later,” she replied, though the real answer was, I don’t know.

“I don’t want to see anything that you have to show me!” Malahi snarled at Ceenah. “I want you to allow me and my companions to leave with the supplies we need to cross the desert.”

“So you can fight the blight.”

“Yes,” Malahi said from between her teeth. “It was created by corrupted tenders, so it stands to reason that a tender can drive it back.”

“You’re right,” Ceenah said. “That’s what I wish to show you. Come.”

With seemingly no regard for the fact they’d nearly all killed each other or that Malahi had torn apart Ceenah’s throne room, the Queen of Anukastre guided them through the palace to a wide set of stairs that led down into darkness.

Agrippa drew to a stop, keeping between Malahi and Ceenah. “If after all we’ve been through I discover that there is a prison down here, I’m not going to be happy, Your Grace. Do recall that I just saved your life.”

“After you threatened to kill me,” Ceenah answered, shooing Xadrian away as he started to draw his sword.

“Only because you planned to kill me.”

“Which I’m considering again.” Ceenah threw up her hands in annoyance, and Lydia noticed the bruising around her throat was already gone. That she healed as quickly as any corrupted. “It’s the way to the underground lake, not a prison.”

“Fine.” Agrippa swept a hand toward the staircase. “You go first.”

The queen looked to the stone stairs, then back at Agrippa. “I’m not going anywhere with you at my back.”

“Together, then?” Agrippa held out his arm. Frowning, Ceenah took his elbow, the pair of them walking side by side down the steps. Malahi and Xadrian eyed each other warily before following them.

“What in the name of the Six happened?” Killian asked, stepping close to Lydia as they followed, Baird and the rest of Xadrian’s soldiers taking up the rear. “Are you all right?”

She gave a tight nod, though in truth, she was rattled. Agrippa’s head wound had been bad, it was true, but when she’d first set eyes on him, he’d been old. Frail.

Which she shouldn’t have been able to do anything about.

Except there had been a pool of life floating in the throne room, and though she could not quite explain how, Lydia had known it belonged to Agrippa.

She’d been able to put it back into him, using herself as a conduit rather than a source of life.

It was a miraculous discovery, yet it was not lost on Lydia that the only thing that had made it possible was that Ceenah hadn’t kept any of the life she’d taken from Agrippa.

She’d pulled it out of him and released it into the room.

Anukastre’s queen had used Hegeria’s mark as a weapon, but by not keeping it for herself, seemed to have avoided corruption.

Her eyes hadn’t turned to black voids with a ring of flame, only remained the solid brown they were now.

Lydia had a thousand questions she wished to ask the woman, but would Ceenah be forthcoming given the violence that had erupted between the two groups? Would she be willing to teach Lydia the secret to weaponizing her mark given they were from enemy nations?

As they descended, a hallowed stillness enveloped Lydia, soothing her frantic need for answers.

The stairs ended, revealing a grand cavern, its walls bearing oil sconces that reflected off the perfectly smooth surface of the lake.

The air was saturated with the aroma of damp stone and clean water.

As she stared into the midnight pool, Lydia was struck with the sense that if she dived in and swam down, she’d never find a bottom.

“This way.” Ceenah led them along the water’s edge, the glow of her lamp revealing that the walls of the cavern had been used as canvases: each panel depicted a different scene rendered with skillful strokes that seemed to breathe life into the stone.

“This place is old,” Ceenah said. “Far older than Obarri itself, which was built upon the ruins of a civilization whose name has been lost to time. Yet the paintings remain, telling us the stories of the people who have come before.”

Lydia took in the artwork, tales of this long-forgotten civilization unfurling as they circled the lake.

Paintings of men and women traversing the lands, their shadows elongated by the sun.

Warriors battling enemies wearing helmets in the shapes of beasts.

Stories of love and loss, wars waged in defense, and tender moments between people whose names were as lost as the civilization itself.

Each brushstroke was imbued with a whisper of forgotten history, and the academic in her longed to pause and drink them in, but Ceenah kept walking.

The cavern narrowed, then opened up again into another grand space, the only light from the lamp Ceenah carried.

The images here were of the gods and their marked, the scenes seeming to serve the same purpose as Treatise of the Seven in that they depicted the acts of the marked in service to the people.

No one spoke as Ceenah finally stopped, holding up her lamp to reveal a series of scenes.

“This is not the first time the land has been infected by blight.” Malahi reached out to touch the winding black snakes branching through the ground, originating from a ball of vines painted in the same sickening green that Lydia had seen in Deadground.

Men, women, and children were shown on their knees, black lines running across their skin, and then again dead at the feet of warriors.

But the tableau grew grimmer, mountains of corpses, trees and plants the color of ash, the hopelessness making Lydia’s eyes burn with tears of empathy, for she knew well how they had felt.

Yet it was the last scenes that stole her breath. Three people knelt with their hands to the ground, the blight retreating, to end with a scene of life teeming in an oasis.

“They defeated it,” Lydia whispered, moving to stand next to Malahi.

“This room holds stories of the marked, so those have to be tenders driving back the blight.” Rounding on Ceenah, she asked, “Is there a similar depiction for one of Hegeria’s marked?

Something that shows those infected by blight being cured? ”

The queen shook her head. “No. This is the only record I’ve seen of it. The only record, I believe, that has survived the intervening time. That we know of, at least.”

“Why didn’t you bring this information to Mudamora the moment you learned the blight had invaded us?” Malahi demanded. “If you knew there was a way to stop it, why not share the information?”

“I did,” Ceenah answered. “Via the Maarin, who are ever impartial, I sent a letter to King Serrick. Your father either dismissed it as false information because we are enemies, or his tenders tried and failed. I suspect the former, but only the Six can say.”

“Perhaps it is false,” Agrippa abruptly said. “You say this painting is ancient, yet it is unfaded as though it were painted ten years ago. Or yesterday. ”

Lydia winced, and next to her, Killian muttered, “Why can you never be silent, Agrippa?”

“Are you accusing me of deceit?” Ceenah’s tone was icy. “Accusing me of fabricating images of Marked Ones in order to mislead a young woman I didn’t even know was one of Yara’s until she tried to kill me?”

“When you put it that way, it seems unlikely,” Agrippa conceded. “Except it’s still not proof of anything. Perhaps the artist was depicting drought or locusts or any number of natural things. How can we know for sure that these black squiggles”—he gestured to the walls—“are blight?”

“Look around at all the pictures you’ve seen.” Ceenah rested her hands on her hips. “Tell me, do any of them look like the Anukastre you’ve journeyed across?”

“They’re all green,” Malahi breathed. “The ground is lush and full of life.”

“These paintings are all that remain of that era,” Ceenah said. “Yet I believe that so much was lost to the blight that the land never recovered. That despite the myriad of underground rivers that flow down from the mountains, Anukastre turned to sand.”

“But the same tenders who defeated the blight could have brought life back to the lands. Why didn’t they?” Malahi asked, and Lydia could feel the other woman’s worry, because most of Mudamora’s population wouldn’t survive life in a desert.

“I have no answers,” Ceenah said.

“What of your own tenders?” Malahi pressed her hands flat against her trousers as though wiping away nervous sweat. “If they were able to create the life we’ve seen in Obarri, why not expand their reach? Why not make Anukastre green again?”

“We have no tenders.” Ceenah looked away. “Yara has cast her eyes away from Anukastre, and all that you have seen was built and cultivated by mortal hands and talent. You are the first of Yara’s marked to step foot here in living memory.”

Not for the first time, Lydia wanted to scream that she’d not asked more of Hegeria when they’d spoken.

The Six had witnessed all this, knew the answers, knew what was to be done, yet they seemed content for their marked to flounder in the dark.

Why was that? They obviously did not want the Corrupter to consume Reath, yet they refused to reveal the information needed to drive it back.

“I… I could try,” Malahi offered. “There is much to work with here in Obarri, and a great deal of water. Maybe I could make Anukastre look like this again.” She gestured to the paintings.

“I thank you, Your Grace, but no.” Ceenah inclined her head. “We are accustomed to our way of life, and the desert protects us from our enemies to the north and to the east.”

Malahi gave a slow nod, then said, “Perhaps a better path would be for those in the east to be your enemies no longer. My father is dead, Your Grace. I am the High Lady of House Rowenes and the Queen of Mudamora. It is within my power, if you will it also.”

“It is something to be considered,” Ceenah admitted.

“Would you also consider lending your army to the fight?” Killian asked. “We have a common enemy, and if Mudamora falls, it will not be long before that enemy turns on Anukastre.”

“The blight needs life to consume in order to spread,” Ceenah answered. “The same dunes that protect us from human enemies will protect us from the corrupted use of tender power, for there is nothing here for them to take. My people are already few. I’ll not risk them fighting Mudamora’s battles.”

“But—”

“No.” Ceenah’s voice brooked no argument. “I will aid you in returning to the coast, where you will surely find a Maarin ship willing to deliver you back to Mudamora. But I will not involve myself or my people in this fight.”

“Coward,” Agrippa muttered, but Ceenah only replied, “We will grant you time to eat and rest, then my son will escort you to the coast. That you keep your lives is concession enough on my part, and one I make only in deference to the gods who marked you or”—she cast a cold glare at Agrippa—“those protected by the marked.”

“This is all well and good,” Baird said, speaking for the first time since they’d entered the caverns. “Except you have weather rolling in from the west, and in Anukastre, that means a sandstorm. None of us are going anywhere just yet.”