Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
Aesira
Massive columns framed crippling stone steps that led inside one of the abandoned buildings. Aesira squinted, daylight was being chased away by night, but with what was left of it she could see an engraving, Ravkian words carved between the two columns.
“What does it say?” she asked Stone.
“Heed this warning,” he read aloud, “those who enter uninvited shall bear death’s wish, a burden of unimaginable things, for in you’ll find the–” He let out a shaky breath and threaded his hands through his hair.
“For in you’ll find the heart of the city of lost kings.
” He shot her a look and she knew he felt it too, the power that emanated from those words.
The realization and meaning etched into the stone.
City of lost kings.
Desmond sought a place of lost kings. Her head spun but Stone’s gentle graze of his finger on hers anchored her to the present. “You found it,” she whispered.
“We all did.”
“Well fuck,” Birdie said. “And we have to go in there?” They peered into the dark opening of the largest ruin. “How important is this lost king, anyway?”
“Bird,” Bee warned but the look on her face proved she was just as nervous as Birdie. “What do we do, Stone?”
Aesira peered through the doorway of the ruin again, the Strix and the water beast flashing behind her eyes.
She leaned closer, listening for any sign of movement.
Singing. Voices. Scuffling from the wind.
It was silent save for their own breathing.
Even the birdsong they’d become accustomed to was gone.
The dark was endless inside the ruin, pulling her in. Luring her–
“Commander?” Stone’s finger brushed against hers again.
Her vision focused, like a band snapping, as she came back to the present.
“Birdie and Bee, stay back and make camp,” she said.
“There’s no sense in all of us going in tonight.
” She bumped Stone’s arm. “You and I will go in, and tomorrow at daybreak we’ll explore the rest.” He nodded, his eyes tracing back to the doorway.
“Uninvited?” Birdie shook her head with a laugh. “You’re going to ignore that message?”
“It’s ancient, likely meant to scare off thieves.” Stone slid off his pack and handed it to Bee. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Birdie let out a low whistle. “Suit yourself.”
“Take a quick glance around the area then make a fire and stay put.” Aesira slid her pack off as well and dropped it on the ground. “We’ll go in, look for any signs of Desmond, and be back out in an hour.”
“One hour,” Stone mimicked.
Green, serpent-like vines wrapped around the columns, tangling over the steps. Aesira was careful where she placed her boot, trying her best not to disturb the life growing there. It was so precious, to see so much growing from the ground, when back home was so barren.
She and Stone tip-toed into the building, a single torch in Stone’s hand lighting their way. Inside, more vines swept across the walls, wrapping around the columns that held the ancient building up. Pebbles and loose rocks kicked under their feet, echoing through the vast room.
“Where did the birds go?” She clutched Stone’s arm.
“The birds?” He held the flame higher. “I haven’t seen any.”
“But you heard them? All day yesterday and even today. And now they’re just…silent?”
Something crunched under Aesira’s boot and the sound and feeling was so painfully familiar, flashes of the Strix in Dire blurred her vision, she was afraid to look down.
“It’s after sunset,” Stone said. “The birds are asleep.”
Aesira pointed toward the back of the building where another large arch opened up into a small room.
“Let’s try this way.” Moonlight crept over the walls and onto the floor from a huge crack in the ceiling.
More crunching under their boots and when Aesira braved a look she was relieved to see, it was a mix of broken glass and dead twigs.
No bones.
No discarded limbs.
The torch filled the small room with warm light but it was more of the same. Crumbling ruins. Leafy vines. Broken glass. But there, in the center, was a lone short column with a glass case on top and inside the case, sat a single, glowing gold flower.
Stone propped the torch against the wall and the two of them together circled the small, domed case. “What is it?” she asked. The flower glowed faintly, pulsing every now and then, reminding her of the Lunaris moths and their wings.
“I think it’s astra.” Stone knelt on the ground, putting his face as close to the glass case as he could without touching it.
Aesira’s brows pinched. “Astra isn’t gold. It’s purple.”
“How can you be sure?” Stone looked up at her from where he knelt.
She’d only seen astra once, when she first was stationed in Vargah.
There was an incident with one of the water workers and Aesira was called in to manage the situation.
He had been attempting to steal extra water for himself.
He was so desperate, she remembered, he pleaded with her that he needed it for his family, to get through the next few days until Naming Day, but she had arrested him anyway.
Threw him in jail and handed off the key like it was as normal as reading the morning parchment.
The water reservoirs were kept in the same vicinity as the astra reservoirs, and because she was curious, she peeked.
The astra flowers were similar to the one in the case, only the ones in Vargah shone purple, not gold. Which is why, she assumed, Vargah had chosen purple as their city colors centuries ago. To match the magical flower from Celestria.
“I saw it once in Vargah when I first arrived.” Skipping the details of how. How heartless she had been to that man who was only trying to save his children. “There’s a mural in the temple, it shows Celestria balancing the moon and astra as well. It’s purple.”
Stone shrugged. “Only one way to find out.” He moved to lift the case but Aesira slapped his hand.
“Don’t! What about the warning outside? Surely this isn’t sitting here just for us.”
Stone glanced around the vacant, decrepit room. “Who is it for then?”
The light of the glowing flower flickered, drawing both of their attention. “Someone put this here for a reason is all I’m saying,” she said. “It feels wrong to disturb it.”
“Fair enough,” Stone said, grabbing the torch. “Let’s keep walking then.”
As wrong as it felt to disturb the flower, it felt more wrong to leave it.
She could admit that while the color was not the same as the astra she saw in Vargah, the flower was unsettlingly similar.
A taut line pulled at Aesira’s middle, drawing her back to the golden flower, but Stone trudged forward with the torch so she ignored the tightness in her stomach and followed him into the dark.