45. Sealed Gates & Fake Flowers
SEALED GATES & FAKE FLOWERS
DAWN
Met the twins in the orchard again. Sweet as sin and eager as anything. They rode me like they were racing each other. I lost. Or won. Hard to say.
VAEL LAR VARLOHEIM, PERSONAL JOURNAL, TEN YEARS PRE-CROSSING. TRANS: T. SALAREN
Well there it was. Valrotala sparkled ahead of them in the late-autumn light. Its white towers echoed the jagged peaks of Thol Amras behind it. The city spilled into the valley, districts and neighborhoods she used to wander through. All surrounded by a massive white wall with copper gates.
The weird thing was, nothing looked ruined from here. Riven went stiff at her side.
“The city burned,” he said. “When we left, it was ash.”
Dawn studied the perfect walls. Four hundred years and not a crack showing. She called bullshit.
They rode down toward the gates. The same gates she remembered. Same stone faces glowering down at her from the walls, every Valtaren king going back however long. They could all rot.
Talia gasped at the Starscript curling over the archway. Dawn was getting used to the flavor of her curiosity. Sweet on her tongue, like spun sugar.
“It’s a riddle,” Talia said, reading the translation out loud for Dawn’s benefit. “I am born from mouths, fed by hearts, and bind the living to the lost. Name me, and the gate remembers its part.”
Dawn hated riddles. Lore motioned for the others to stay back.
“Avatei leipi!” He pressed his palm to the stone. Open for passage.
Nothing happened.
He tried a different pronunciation, getting louder.
Dawn folded her arms. “The door doesn’t like that.”
Lore ignored her. “Talent. You try.”
He didn’t have the courtesy to ask, just summoned the girl up like a tool. Talia pressed a hand against the metal gate. Her mind snapped awake, sparkling across the bond.
“Born from mouths…fed by hearts…” She traced the letters in the air as she thought through it. “Something said aloud. Or read.”
She paced while she thought. “Not prophecy, that’s too literal. Not an oath, wrong structure.” Then she stopped and smiled. “Bind the living to the lost. Stories do that.”
She turned back to the gate. “Story. That’s the answer.”
The gate flared to life. Starlight raced across the archway. Crystal veins lit up bright enough to throw shadows.
Lore stepped forward like it had responded to him.
“Of course,” he murmured. “A story. A tale. A prophecy.”
Dawn didn’t bother rolling her eyes.
The light reached the center seam—
—and died with a soft little fizzle.
Silence slammed down around them. Lore froze, hand still hanging in front of the unmoving gate.
“No,” he said. Quiet. “No, that’s—try it again.”
Talia lowered her voice. “I don’t think—”
“Try it again!” he snapped.
She didn’t flinch. She just knelt and brushed away dust to reveal cracked crystal veins set into the ground, blackened and dead.
“The answer was right,” she said patiently. “But the gate can’t open. The whole mechanism is blown out.”
Well, damn. This wasn’t a trial they could win. It was a system, and the system was cracked. As dead as the foundation stones they’d been kicking over all the way here. As dead as the bastards that built this place.
Lore’s expression changed—fear, fury, humiliation—cycling so fast Dawn almost missed it. Then his mask slammed back in place. “It’s a divine trial. If the answer is correct—”
He slapped the stone arch. “Open.”
Nothing.
“Avatei! Open!” He hit harder this time.
The door absorbed his outburst. The sound didn’t even echo back.
Lore turned to face the group. His control shook loose. Raw need flashed across his features before he smoothed it away.
Dawn couldn’t help herself. “Four hundred years is a long time, prophet. Shit breaks.”
She’d thrown the title like a slap. His neck flushed red. Good, it landed.
Talia approached a gnarled old apple tree near the base of the wall and pulled a piece of fruit down. She’d been keeping the bond open ever since Haven, letting Dawn in on her emotions. The girl’s curiosity spiked.
“An orchard,” Talia breathed. “Vael wrote about an orchard.” She fished a battered old journal out of her satchel, flipping pages fast.
“The Moon Garden.” She looked between Dawn and Riven. “Do you know where it was?”
“Inside the walls,” Riven answered. “Southwest corner. We can’t get there. though. It’s beyond the gate.”
“Oh gods,” Talia breathed. “Except we can. There has to be another way in.”
She led them through the overgrown apple orchard toward the southwest corner. Just outside where the Moon Garden was. She stopped, took a deep breath, and opened the journal.
“So, this was Vael’s journal,” she said quickly, cheeks flushed. Holloway swore under his breath.
She flipped pages until she found what she was looking for.
“I’ll just read it,” she said, her face flushing pink. “Met the twins in the orchard again. Sweet as sin and eager as anything. They rode me like”—she choked—“sorry, that part’s not important. Use your imagination.”
She flipped another page. “Here, Nearly dropped onto a patrol cutting back through the Moon Garden. They stared like I’d come down from the heavens and not the damned wall.”
Talia closed the journal softly. Holding it closed like the words might jump out and bite her.
“He snuck out, and he didn’t go through the front gate. He did—some stuff—here in the orchard, then he climbed over the wall and dropped into the Moon Garden.” She pointed at the ivy-choked wall. “Somewhere around there.”
The pride in Riven’s smile hit Dawn square in the chest. Hadn’t seen that look from him in a long time.
Didn’t take long to find the spot once she knew to look. There was an ornamental carving of a massive dragon hewn into the wall. The notches along its spine almost looked like a ladder. The facade was crumbling in places, but it was worth a shot.
Dawn tested the first foothold. Solid. Then she paused. She glanced back at their dusty, restless horses. They weren’t taking animals into a place like Valrotala. Certainly not over a wall.
“We need to cut the horses loose,” she said.
Holloway blinked. “What do you mean? We’re just letting them go?”
“Better they run free than break a leg in that place,” Dawn said, untying Jonquil’s lead and rubbing her nose, then moving on to Brimstone. She felt her throat go tight. Brimstone was a good girl.
They’d have to figure out how to get home without horses, but that only mattered if they survived.
They stripped the saddles, gathered the packs, and stepped back. The horses didn’t need urging. They bolted into the orchard at a gallop, tails snapping. No going back now.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s break into this fucking place.”
Dawn took point. The second handhold crumbled under her grip. She cursed, found another. Riven followed, and Talia came next. She climbed pretty well for a scholar. Holloway grunted behind her. Lore came last, sour as ever.
The incline got steeper. Roots dangled overhead and Dawn grabbed one, pulled herself to a narrow ledge. Riven was just behind her.
Talia climbed careful and quick, until her boot slipped.
She yelped, weight dropping—
Riven caught her around the waist with one arm, but the force of it yanked them both sideways. For one breathless second, Dawn thought they’d both go down. Then Riven’s other hand locked onto a root and held.
Dawn felt dizzy from the ripple of feedback from Talia’s shock, then the clean drop of relief. She cursed under her breath. The fucking city was already working against them.
The ledge opened into a cramped tunnel, some kind of garbage chute, from the smell of it. The walls scraped Dawn’s shoulders. Roots snagging in her hair. But she could see light at the end.
Dawn dragged herself out onto another narrow ledge. She brushed bits of crap out of Riven’s old jacket, which was hers now. That was when she looked down.
The Moon Garden had been a jewel among Valrotala’s many treasures.
Even Dawn hadn’t hated it. The luriel blossoms only opened in starlight.
Their vines had been woven into arches and benches and mazy paths.
To come here on a clear summer night, when the air was warm and the sky was full of stars—it was something to see.
The place was a dusty tangle now. Heaps of dead vines. Dry pools. Crystal chimes that made no sound. She dropped off the ledge. When she hit the ground, a thin cloud of dust rose around her.
Riven stood frozen at the edge. Whatever she felt, this was worse for him. After a beat, he dropped down next to her. Talia came down next. She crouched to touch a shriveled luriel flower, the petals dissolving in her fingers.
Riven knelt next to her. “These flowers stored up moonlight. They glowed brightest on the darkest nights.”
“It’s still beautiful,” she said, rubbing the dust between her fingers.
Lore crushed dead petals under his heel as he stalked past them all. “Welcome to Valrotala.”
Dawn adjusted her grip on her revolvers and led the way. They slipped under a low arch, and she felt an itch between her shoulders. Something was off. She turned a corner and stopped hard enough that Lore ran into her. She expected bones and dust. She expected more decay. She didn’t expect this.
It was a market, but it was perfect. One wooden stall held pyramids of apples, peaches, oranges. The fruits were all perfectly round. Their skins glistened. There was a bakery stand with bread set out half sliced. The air smelled like honey.
She didn’t see a fleck of dust. No footprints. Everything looked cozy and lived-in, but she was shivering. Talia pressed her palm to the loaf of bread. Over the bond Dawn felt her heart flutter with surprise.
“It’s warm,” Talia whispered.
Lore came up beside her. “The true gods keep this place. They welcome us.”
“Gods don’t bake bread,” Talia said back.
She moved on to a flower stall and tugged a round pink bloom out of its bouquet. She spun it in front of her nose and frowned.
“It’s a good copy, but it doesn’t smell like anything.” She looked up at all of them. “It’s an illusion. It’s all an illusion.”
Dawn scanned the pristine street. The impossible food. Whatever was doing this must have known they were here. Was probably watching. And now they were trapped inside with it.