Chapter 32 #3
I see sketches of jars similar to the ones covering so many of the shelves, as well.
The word beside them, I’m able to translate because it’s the same one the common tongue uses—essence.
That’s what they called whatever they collected in those glass containers.
The record books seem to catalogue this collection alongside the notes taken on whatever dragons were processed during any given week.
Clearly, this was a vast, organized operation.
My eyes cast about. Looking for what, I don’t know. Just something less disturbing than the books. But my search is in vain; everything about this place is disturbing, including the set of stairs I eventually settle on, which spirals up higher than I can see.
“The Temple of the Mouren Flame…” I say, my voice hoarse. “It's directly above us, isn't it?”
Briar looks up at the ceiling. “That would be my guess.”
The full, terrible picture begins to assemble itself, and I can’t shut my eyes and ignore it any longer.
Below the very temple meant to honor the gods and the uniting power of their dragons, the rulers of Mouren found a way to dismantle it all.
They brought dragons here and they opened them up and they siphoned out whatever they needed to take control of their essence, to make themselves into something the gods never intended.
We stole it.
This is what Reave meant.
An emotion I can’t name surges through me. Something ancient and furious, tempered by a sorrow deep enough to drown. It feels too big to be only my own; I think it might be coming from Sesca, that maybe she’s reading my thoughts, or even seeing some part of this horror through my eyes.
I find myself longing for her voice to follow the feeling, for her warmth to reach me down here in this dark place.
But her voice doesn’t come.
I don’t know if it’s because we’re too far from one another, or if there simply are no words that can properly speak of this grievance. Like she knows I simply need to see it, nothing else.
It makes me wonder if some buried part of her already knew about this horrible place, but she couldn’t find the words to tell me about it.
Not the particulars, maybe. Not this room, these walls, these altars.
But somewhere in the depths of her—in whatever accumulated memory she carries from lives before this one—I fear she has to have some knowledge of what went on here.
Is that why the gods sent her to me?
Is that why we ended up in this city?
I suddenly feel like a player in a divine performance, thrust into the spotlight, and I don’t know whether to try and make my way through the show or to simply burn down the whole stage.
“Do you think…” Briar begins, her voice barely above a whisper, “…that whatever dark rituals are, or were, being committed here…do you think the current royal family has practiced them, too? Is that where the king’s magic and control of dragons comes from?”
My heart clenches as I picture Reave’s face.
Sorrow.
That’s what burns most brightly in his soul, Sesca said.
But is he grieving because of the crimes his bloodline has committed, or because whatever they did is no longer working, no longer granting him the power his ancestors once held?
Briar is watching me nervously, still waiting for my reply.
And I have spent most of my life believing I already knew the answer to her question—that of course something dark and rotten festers in the heart of Mouren’s king.
He’s an insufferable, monstrous bastard.
One who would rip off the heads of most of the people in this empire and feed them to the closest dragon, if given the chance.
But now, standing here among these blood-stained altars, I have a sudden, jarring realization…
I don’t want him to be a monster.
I want him to be different.
I want this entire godsdamn world to be different, and I want to scream because it isn’t, because I’m surrounded by yet more terrible, suffocating proof that it’s broken and bleeding in ways I’m not sure I can fix, that it’s drenched in shadows—in a darkness so thick I’m having a hard time seeing anything worth saving in it at all.
“Owyn?”
I take several deep breaths.
Still here, I remind myself—that old, stubborn greeting of my home.
“I…I’ll figure out how he’s connected to it all,” I promise Briar.
As long as I’m still here, somehow, I have to figure things out.
“I’ve seen enough of this place for now.” I place a hand over my heavy, thudding heart. “And Sesca is panicking over not being able to reach me, I’m sure; I need to get back to her before she does something drastic.”
Briar nods slowly, moving in a daze toward the entrance to the tunnel.
I return to the black stones I ignited, watching the purple-tinted flames dance for a moment as I try to finish collecting my courage, steeling my resolve. They give off no warmth as I hold my hand out and reclaim my fire.
Darkness falls back around us like a closing fist, but I hold fast to the flame in my palm and force my feet to keep moving through it.