Page 109

Chapter

Seventy-Four

Liv

In many stories, people look inside themselves for the kernel of magic, for their power, but this power isn’t mine.

I’m not even sure it’s the gods. The Ikhor wants something, and it’s not to be returned.

In fact, it wants revenge. It’s connected to the earth and uses the earth’s power as its own, as if connected to all magic—I can feel it in every rock and tree, even more so in the crystals.

This being that possessed me, I’ve made its voice my own and learned to speak its language with my heart—my emotions.

Unfortunately for the world, my heart is broken, tainted and full of hate.

N uo had once given me so much drink that I woke feeling like I had fallen from a great height and mashed every bone in my body. I discovered in the worst way what falling from a great height and breaking every bone actually felt like.

I had battled the Aspis, passing through clouds, fighting to be free of its sharp teeth, only to be thrown into the open sky. We had flown a great distance until the air turned cold, freezing me. Until the Aspis could no longer be controlled.

Brekt had tried for as long as he could to stay in command, but I paid for it when he faded away. The Aspis opened its mouth, roaring, and dropped me.

I plummeted to my death. The wind stole my breath while the beast chased me through the clouds, so I fought and sent a ball of fire to its face.

As I fell and fell and fell, it followed me, snapping its teeth, trying to catch me or end me—I couldn’t tell.

Smoke churned around its long body, slithering through the sky. Arms formed from the smoke, with vicious claws tearing through the skin. I sent a bolt of lightning at it, catching it between the eyes and causing it to lose consciousness.

My hair whipped me in the face, but I didn’t look away from the beast. The Aspis fell through the sky with me, and I spread my arms wide to slow myself, reaching its horns and grabbed on, pulling myself around.

I held onto the black curling horn, wrapping myself around it as the ground rose to meet us.

Everything below was white. Ice cliffs rose to the sky.

Until we were atop them. The icy rock scraped along the beast’s side as I used the last of my energy to summon wind, slowing the Aspis down as it crashed through ice and snow.

I gripped its horn, praying my magic could heal a body broken from such a fall.

We crashed against the rock and ice, sliding down a mountainside.

A sound boomed like the earth cracking in two, and then it went dark.

I drifted for a time in the nightmare place.

I may have even seen Brekt there. We were connected in a place outside of the real world, and I didn’t have an answer to the dreams, even after discovering what the shadow monster was, who was setting fires to the earth and what it was that took me from my lands. The dream place was a mystery.

But I didn’t stay there for long, and when I came to, I groaned, writhing in pain as my magic stitched my body back together. I only prayed it went back together the right way.

I wasn’t sure if I had lost my vision or if it was night. I blinked several times, making sure my eyes were open, and was met only with darkness.

The Aspis was alive. Its laboured breathing wasn’t far from where I lay. By the rattling sound, it had been badly hurt, too. Served it right for trying to kill me high above the ground. I prayed Brekt felt none of it the next time he woke.

My fingers burned as I felt around me, meeting icy rock. I continued to writhe in pain, reminded of the time when Kazhi healed me in a tub. Magycris’s healing was much the same. Of course, it was—magic healing didn’t save you from feeling how your body stitched back together.

After an eternity of bones being repaired and pain stealing my breath, my mind went quiet, savouring the peace that returned with a healed body.

The Aspis’s deep breathing gave off a slight echo, meaning we had to have walls around us. My right side absorbed the warmth it gave off.

“Ugh,” I pushed myself up, sitting, thankful that I could. I didn’t dare call out for help, not in the dark. I didn’t want to know what might answer. Instead, I summoned a bit of fire. It burst to life, blinding me.

“I’m not angry,” I said in a low voice. I felt no emotion, yet the fire came easily, resting as a tiny ball in my palm. It flickered, warm light shining off glistening scales a few feet to my right—I was controlling it with just a thought.

I blinked, and it was out. I summoned it again, and it exploded in my hand, burning my cheeks— maybe not full control .

I moved my hand to angle the light downward. My leather pants were scraped but not destroyed, and my swords remained attached to their belt. Curiously, my pack was lying several feet away, half-buried in snow.

I grabbed a strand of hair with my free hand—white. So, the magic healed my wounds but had not turned me back to my former self.

I stood, brushed the snow off my pants, swiped my hair from my face, and wrapped my free arm around myself, shaking from the cold. I willed the fire to grow, amazed when it obeyed, bathing in its warmth.

The Aspis’s head was hidden in the dark.

I would need to find wood to set alight so I could stop using the magic; otherwise, Brekt would not be able to take control and return. And all alone in this darkness, I needed him more than ever.

I walked along the side of the Aspis until I reached its head. It was slanted to one side, and its eyes were closed, but it was alive. I rested my free hand against the scales of its massive jaw. “You’ll live. I promise. I will get us out of here.”

Frost gathered at the tips of its scales. I would need a big fire to keep the beast from freezing. Its breath was warm, easing the cold from my joints before I braved moving past it in the dark.

I tried to recall what happened. I remembered Rem, the shadow monster, and then …

“Kill the bastards.”

Nuo had been shot. Dying. My steps faltered as I remembered him lying on the ground, bleeding out.

But no, he had stood again. He had spoken to me, telling me to stop. Stop what?

My feet crunched on ice as I tried to remember. I recalled flashes of water, fire and bodies hanging from vines—I sucked in a breath. “What did I do?” My voice echoed.

I spun to find the Aspis still sleeping—images came back to me of death. So many people dead. Had I caused that?

The Aspis’s breathing shook, as did my own. I watched its curled body rise and fall while I panicked. I needed to get out of here, get back to the shrine, and find the others.

I conjured more flames, lighting up a larger area, spinning to find a way out, only for the light to bounce back.

We were in an ice cave. I couldn’t see very high up, but the Aspis must have crashed through ice, taking us below ground.

I ran through the glittering cavern, with hard, cold rock under my feet, until I came to a wall of stone.

I lifted my hand to find the stone going up and up. “There has to be a way out.”

I followed the rock wall, farther away from the Aspis, until I discovered the massive painting spanning the entire facade. We couldn’t be far from the outside. In every cave I visited with the Guards, the paintings were always near the entrance.

I summoned more fire until both hands were alight with it.

For a moment, I was distracted by how easily the fire came, but I shook it off.

Tilting my head up, I studied the images, which were so large that they disappeared into shadow.

My muscles relaxed as the warmth of the fire spread, forcing the cold away.

I lifted my palms to further illuminate the painted image. I stepped to the right, then to the left. I jumped to see higher, my movements becoming more frantic as more of the painting was revealed.

“Oh my god.”

I couldn’t believe what I found in a pure, terrifyingly fortunate streak of luck.

“Oh my god!” I repeated.

Other caves I had visited in Veydes had paintings of the legacies, depicting them standing around their temples. It was much the same as this painting, only this time …

“This is a map!”

Ouras’s temple, depicted with his Mount-legs in Veydes, settled in a forest above river lands, but Danuli wasn’t painted. That had to mean this map was ancient.

In the southern desert land sat Rem’s temple.

“The Temple of Day,” I whispered, seeing not only the golden Day-legs around the building like they painted in Veydes, but blue and white too. Was this cave in Rydavas? Or was it hidden for so many years the truth hadn’t been erased?

I lifted my hands to search north of Rem’s temple, and sure enough, the South Aspis Guardian camp didn’t exist.

Wherever the Aspis had flown us was far away from any modern-day settlements. No one was exploring these caves, looking for crystals. This cave was untouched. It had to be if these images were left intact.

The sea between Veydes and Rydavas differed from Nuo’s map—larger, with rivers going through where the Eagle’s canyon now sat, splitting the continents in two.

Each piece of this painting was perfectly intact.

“In the cave before the Oracle’s village … the cave painting Nuo and I inspected, pieces of it were missing as if scraped away,” I muttered to myself. Was this another piece of history changed by Rem? Had he instructed his children to erase the truth?

My heart threatened to stop, it was pounding so fast. I needed to see higher.

Something important had to be in the far north.

I ran from the wall, fumbling in the snow and slipping on the ice.

It took me far too long to find several stones small enough to carry back and make a pile to stand on.

I stacked them, one on top of the other before climbing the stones and steadying my weight.

Then, summoning the fire back to full strength, I reached my arms high, standing on my tiptoes.

Adrenaline pumped into my magic, brightening the flames and sending the light across the cave wall.

I lit up the river lands, the plains, and the Oracle’s jungle, which had been bare mountains long ago.

Bellum didn’t exist, but other small settlements I had never heard of scattered across the lands.

I moved the flames again, scanning farther across the wall and?—

“Oh my god.”

There it was.

Dark and massive, a terrifying structure was shown surrounded by legacies, all with glowing eyes. Black spires rose high into the sky, so much larger than the people below.

Brekt had said there were no records left showing the locations of the missing temples, but he hadn’t searched a cave like this one.

I had.

And I had found the lost Temple of Night.