Chapter 31
Nyra slumped against the rough rock column, the stone cold and unyielding at her back. A dizzy spell hit her like a hammer, the world tilting as her vision flashed white at the edges. She nearly slipped, boots scraping on the stone, but she caught herself with one hand pressed hard against the pillar. Her breath came in ragged pulls, the air tasting of blood and smoke. She steadied her stance, then tore a long strip from the hem of her ruined coat with shaking fingers. The fabric was stiff with dried sweat and fresh blood, but she wrapped the fresh bandage around her biceps anyway. The cloth stuck to the raw wound, sending fire lancing up her arm, but she gritted her teeth and cinched it tight using her teeth to pull the knot. Blood oozed through the layers, slow and thick now, no longer pulsing in hot spurts. She watched it soak into the material, fascinated despite the pain she now felt, the bright violet threading through the weave like living ink.
The valley below lay quiet for the moment, the distant clash of steel faded to scattered echoes. Her Keth Veyl were doing well, it appeared, as she saw the Veyl and High Veyl making strategic moves, but she knew it was only a pause, a breath before the next push. The humans would come again, driven by whatever madness made them believe the Temple could be theirs. Nyra closed her eyes for a heartbeat, letting the exhaustion wash over her, the weight of the day settling into her bones like lead. She had killed more than she could count, felt the give of flesh under her blade, heard the wet gasps of the dying. And still the compulsion gnawed at her, that pull from the Temple above, stronger now than it had ever been.
A sound reached her then, faint but unmistakable. A horn, three notes rising clear and sharp from the summit high above.
She froze, ears straining against the wind.
Again, the horn sounded, louder this time, the notes carrying down the slopes with chilling clarity. Its message was unmistakable. Breach. The Temple had been breached.
She straightened, pulling herself upright with a surge that drowned the pain in fresh adrenaline. The wound in her arm, the ache in her lungs, all of it forgotten in the rush. Impossible. The Temple she had sworn to defend, the heart of everything Sylphar, had human infiltrators inside its walls? How had they gotten up there? The grand stairs were watched, and all the known hidden paths sealed or trapped. Her mind raced through possibilities, strategies crumbling like dry earth under the weight of this new threat.
She looked up, tracing the long line of the grand stair that snaked up the mountainside to the highest terrace. The Temple squatted there, massive and lightless against the night sky, its silhouette jagged and ancient, a shadow carved from the rock itself. The windows glowed faintly, not with the warm flicker of fire or candle, but with a sickly yellow light that pulsed in slow, deliberate beats. It matched the throb in her chest, in her veins, making the hairs on her arms stand on end. She thought of the Stillight, the double helix that burned at the core of everything, and felt that pull sharpen into something almost painful, a hook buried deep.
She took the steps two at a time, her boots pounding the stone despite the burn in her legs. She slipped once on a patch of loose gravel, catching herself with her good arm, the impact jarring up her arm. The wind fought her every step, howling down the stair like a living thing trying to drive her back. But she pushed forward, driving her legs harder, not caring anymore if the blood from her wound left a trail behind her.
The climb felt eternal, each flight of steps steeper than the last, the air thinner and colder as she rose. Her lungs burned with every breath, her vision narrowing to the stone under her feet and the dark bulk of the Temple above. Memories flashed unbidden. The first time she had climbed these stairs as a young warrior, full of fire and certainty, the battles fought on these very terraces, violet and red blood mingling in the cracks, and the oaths sworn to defend this place at any cost. Now it was breached, and the failure tasted bitter on her tongue.
After what seemed like an eternity, Nyra forced herself up the last flight, lungs on fire, legs trembling with the effort. She ignored the urge to collapse, to rest even for a moment, ignored the way her head spun and wanted to loll forward. Sweat stung her eyes, mixing with the blood on her face, but she blinked it away and pressed on. At the top, the Temple doors loomed before her, massive slabs of ancient wood and iron, their surface battered by centuries of war but still standing defiant. The iron bands were thick as her arm, woven in patterns that spoke of metal craft long forgotten, and the lock was bigger than her head, cold and unyielding.
She ran the hundred yards across the courtyard to the doors, boots echoing on the stone, breath coming in harsh gasps. With a shout that tore from her throat raw and furious, she leaned her good shoulder into the seam and shoved with everything she had left. The doors groaned, resisted like living things, the wood creaking under the strain. For a heartbeat she thought they would hold, that she would fail here at the threshold. Then they gave, swinging inward with a deep, reluctant rumble that vibrated through her bones.
She staggered inside, reeling as the warmth of the interior crashed over her like a wave. The cold of the night vanished, replaced by air that was still and heavy, thick with the scent of old stone and faint incense. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the dim light, the glow from the windows outside casting long shadows across the vast space.
The outer sanctum was empty. No guards patrolled the floors, no defenders waited in the alcoves. The silence pressed in, broken only by her own ragged breathing and the distant, muffled sounds of the battle far below. She stared across the enormous room to the doors on the opposite side, the ones that led to the inner sanctum, to the heart where the Stillight burned.
Nyra stepped toward them, blade drawn, every sense alert. The compulsion pulled at her harder now, a tide dragging her forward. The Stillight was beyond those doors, and it knew she was coming. It had called her. And she would not turn back.