Chapter 10 #2
“Let’s go then,” Nakir said, unpacking and lighting a torch to illuminate the way.
He was the first to enter the downward-stepping corridor, amber eyes scanning every surface for any dangers.
It was unlikely they would find anything living down here, but temples containing rare treasures were most often armed with deadly traps to discourage looting.
He found one at the bottom of the stairs: a specific stone, set into the floor with a pressure-release mechanism.
Nakir didn’t bother to disarm it, but he warned the others to avoid it as they moved forward.
The walls and the floor were all crafted of the same smooth stone.
After thirty feet, the stairs gave way to flat pavement, the narrow corridor continuing for another fifty feet.
Pools of condensation dripped from the low ceiling, creating small puddles he edged around.
Nakir proceeded carefully, each step measured and cautious.
He and Balthasar had crawled through enough dungeons to know one wrong step could be fatal, and not a single one of them had the power to heal.
By the time they’d arrived at a wide archway at the end of the corridor, the sweat on his neck had chilled.
The room ahead was pitch-black, but he stepped forward, torch held out in front of him, eyes attempting to adjust to the darkness.
He found several sconces and lit them one by one, revealing a wide hexagonal room.
Balthasar and Mika entered shortly after him, Mika’s big brown eyes swimming with tears of joy at the sight of the inner room of the temple.
“It’s... beautiful.”
The two walls closest to the entrance were smooth and blank, but the other three joined together to reveal a carved relief, exactly as Mika had described.
On the left panel, the Fate goddess Nehalennia stood among a lush forest, her arms drawn back to fire a massive longbow—except where the longbow would be carved into the wall, there was only an empty relief, as if there had once existed an actual bow, long removed from the mosaic.
A massive wolf crouched at her side, teeth bared and ready to strike.
The night sky and an open field took up the entire center panel, three arrows fired across them—or, at least, there were three indentations where arrows had once been.
As with the longbow, they seemed to have been pried from the walls.
On the right panel was a massive stag rearing up on its hind legs, frozen in time and memorialized forever in the relief carving.
“There it is,” Mika breathed as he approached Nehalennia. He pointed to the amulet around her neck. Though it was covered in enough dust to make it blend in with the rest of the stone, he could just see the amulet was real and not part of the carving.
They all approached, Nakir pulling a dagger from his belt to pry it off the wall.
He slowly inserted the tip between the metal that held a center stone within an intricate design, doing his best to move as slowly as possible, even as his heart raced.
This was the closest he had come to finding Truth-Teller.
This was the big break he had been searching for, for all these years.
“There it is!” Mika cheered. “The Dreamseeker. Now, remember, be very careful. I mean, it’s nearly impossible to destroy an artifact made by a god, especially one made by a Primal god, though it’s widely debated if Nehalennia was a Primal god when she made these artifacts, as she only became a Primal deity after witnessing the fall of Osiron at the hands of Aeshma—”
“Mika,” Nakir groaned, halting his efforts.
The scholar stiffened, taking a step back. “Sorry! I only meant to say, you probably want to be careful.”
Nakir narrowed his eyes as he continued to chip away at the stone. With both Balthasar and Mika looking over his shoulder, it was incredibly difficult to work efficiently.
“Can you just... go look at the stag or something?” he finally asked Mika, who stepped back eagerly. Even now, the kid seemed perfectly happy to just be along for the ride.
“He’s been studying this for years, Nakir. He’s just excited. Cut him some slack,” Balthasar chided.
“He knows the deal. And he’s pissing me off.” Nakir resumed his efforts, gently tapping away at the stone surrounding the amulet. Minutes ticked painfully by before he even began to make progress, but the Dreamseeker finally wiggled free, slipping into his open hands.
Trepidation buzzed through Nakir’s veins as he inspected it carefully.
Silver tendrils snaked around a mysterious blue stone, which glimmered in the faint firelight.
The amulet in his hands represented the possibility of a future where the Hasan name was respected and honored once more; where he could finally stop hiding, checking all his meals and drinks for poison, or looking over his shoulder for the next assassin.
The Dreamseeker would bring him to his future. To Lenorea.
To home.
“Do you know what you’re going to ask for?” Balthasar asked, his quiet voice barely echoing in the small room.
“I’ve thought of nothing else since we learned about it months ago.
” Nakir studied the Dreamseeker, both hands holding the precious artifact.
“There are so many things I want to wish for.” For his parents to be alive again.
For his father to be king. For Aikat to have never taken the throne...
To have been born without the horns of an Aeshlien.
To have his magic back... “But there’s only one thing that will get me what I want.
” Nakir took a deep breath, closing his eyes and focusing his entire being on the Dreamseeker.
Though he no longer had access to magic, he still remembered what it felt like as if it were a phantom limb.
He reached for that again, imagining it wrapping around him and guiding him forward.
“I seek the Truth-Teller. Reveal it to me.”
Nakir waited in the darkness, eyes closed. He expected some vision to flash behind his eyes, or for the walls to shift and reveal the answer to his request. Everything stood still as he waited for something to happen. Anything.
Minutes crept by.
There was only the three of them, standing in the ancient, decrepit temple of Nehalennia.
Something wasn’t right.
“What’s wrong with it?” Nakir asked, desperation clawing at him as the thought crossed his mind that they had come all this way for an artifact that didn’t do anything.
“Mika! What’s wrong here? It’s... It’s not working.
” Had the magic already been used up? Were the texts wrong about what it did? Had they come all this way for nothing?
“I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong,” Mika replied from across the room.
“It didn’t work,” Nakir whispered, shaking his head. All of this... for nothing.
“I... I don’t understand. You did exactly what the texts—”
But Mika’s words were cut off abruptly by a sickening crack.
Nakir’s gaze shot up to see three arrows protruding from the arcanist’s neck. All the air left his lungs.
Mika had stepped on a stone exactly like the one they’d passed earlier. Nakir could see a hole had opened from one of the smooth walls by the entrance, but it was too late.
Mika’s body hit the stone floor with a thud.
“Fuck!” Nakir rushed to him, rolling the arcanist over onto his back, as if there was anything he could do. “Mika! Mika, listen to me. Mika.”
The light had already left his eyes.
“Don’t,” Balthasar said quietly, his voice a trembling whisper. “He’s gone, Nakir.”
“No!” Nakir swore, shaking Mika’s limp shoulders as blood soaked the stone floor under his knees.
Every ounce of frustration he’d felt at the kid came rushing back up in direct confrontation. Mika had done nothing but ask curious questions and guide them exactly to where he had promised. In doing so, he’d given up his future, his life, for a trinket.
Nakir had failed him in every way possible.
Was this what it took to get Lenorea back? What throne was worth this? All Nakir had done with his entire life was ruin. How many lives would be lost in his quest for vengeance and retribution?
“Nakir,” Balthasar rumbled, sensing the places his friend was going. “Nakir, don’t. Don’t go there.”
“We’re done,” he rasped, staring at the blood on his hands. “We’re done looking for the Truth-Teller, whatever the fuck it is. I won’t do this anymore.” Bitterness laced every word, his self-condemnation palpable.
“What you’re feeling is understandable, Nakir.”
Nakir’s jaw tightened, his fists clenched in frustration.
“No. I’m every bit the fucking monster they say I am.
He isn’t the first. And if I don’t stop...
he won’t be the last. I won’t do it. This ends here.
We’re going back to Ephesus. And we don’t speak about the Truth-Teller.
” The resolve in Nakir’s voice filled the room with a dark chill, his decision final and irrevocable. “Not ever again.”