10. Callum #2
The door swung shut behind me as I stalked across the hallway, going to grab the next guard’s slumped form.
I studied the two guards, taking note of the entry wound from where Axel had shot them.
The bullets we’d fired on the guards were from the Guild’s latest collection—a limited number of bullets that were absorbed into the bloodstream, rendering the victim unconscious. At least . . . for the next four hours.
Killing them would have been easier, but Elion was strict in his rules for the Aurelian Guild—rules we’d been forced to memorize at an early age. With one of his foremost mandates being to neutralize all targets with as few fatalities as possible, until Aeternus cast his judgment.
“Well . . . are you going to help?” I grunted, moving the next guard into the same secluded room as the first before his blood stained the halls.
“Oh, my bad,” Axel replied as he started moving. “Didn’t realize you needed help. Why are we hiding their bodies instead of just, you know . . . taking care of them?”
“Seriously, Pierce? This? Again?” I sighed as I unceremoniously dropped the guard into the room I’d stashed the first one in.
“I’m just saying, it would make this easier.”
“I’m not saying I disagree, but we don’t make the rules, we just follow orders.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Axel said dismissively as he moved to help.
“We aren’t going for easy,” I replied. “And we aren’t killing them, we’re just rendering them unconscious.”
“So sorry, boss man. I didn’t realize we were being so technical about the terminology of our attacks.”
“On this mission, yes,” I seethed. “We are being technical because Elion specifically stated to scout, not kill.”
“So maiming is okay, just not killing?”
“For star’s sake, Axel,” I groaned as we stepped into the cover of the shadows. “Maiming is not killing. And we aren’t aiming to maim or kill today, okay? We’re spies, after all.”
“Spies who sometimes—usually—have to kill on the job. All Elion dictates is that we avoid fatalities when possible. But whatever helps you sleep at night,” he stated as he shut the door behind us, turning to find me glaring at him in annoyance, which only caused him to chuckle further.
We began making our way to the furthest door on the floor—to the room that the older floor plans we’d accessed indicated had another door hidden inside, leading into the unknown.
“I didn’t think the air could contain more dust indoors than it does outside during the summer winds,” Axel grumbled under his breath as we moved through a maze of rooms. Each room was smaller and dustier than the one before, with walls lined with ancient scrolls and tomes.
History written back before technology had even been a figment of the imagination.
It was clear we’d stumbled across rooms Lucanus and the priestesses of Solis Quarter had kept hidden for centuries.
I prayed to Aeternus that we were getting closer to the room containing their oldest texts—the ones we wouldn’t even find through hidden searches in the Astra Tech database.
Manuscripts old enough to have come from a time before Aurelia was divided into Quarters.
From a time before The Rift carved itself into our city.
As we made our way through the rooms—some of which couldn’t have been larger than bedroom closets—we finally made it to a room that had no other doors, no other exits. We’d reached the end, and what I presumed to be the beginning of the secrets hidden from Solis Quarter.
When we finally stepped inside, I pressed a button on my tactical vest, and a light came on, illuminating the space as we took in the ancient texts, covered in thick layers of dust.
“I still can’t believe you were right.”
“I believe the words you’re looking for are ‘Thanks, Cal, for researching the temple floor plans while I watched my team lose their match today.’”
“That’s not what I was thinking, but sure, let’s go with that,” Axel retorted with a dry chuckle.
“Imagine if you hadn’t let me finish the research,” I replied with a winning grin.
“Well, this is a first . . . so I wouldn’t get too cocky. We both know my research skills are far better than yours.”
“Your hacking skill, maybe. Research . . . not so sure,” I replied as I started flipping through the files closest to me, while Axel began on the opposite side of the narrow space.
Shifting the files, I scanned the scrawling across the ancient texts, the paper so old it was nearly crumbling beneath my touch.
There were too many stories of Aurelia’s history, all buried in ancient texts that weren’t visible to the public.
Stories of the Eternal God, of the creation of Aurelia, of the meanings behind our markings.
Historical texts that should have been recorded and stored in the Astra Tech database for reference—so they wouldn’t be lost to time.