Violet Legacy (New Atlantis #1)
1. Chapter One
Chapter 1
15 Miles south of Gobekli Tepe, Sanliurfa Province, Turkey
18 Oct 2076
Joint Atlantean/human archaeological excavation
T here were worse ways to die. Rieka Sinha couldn’t think of them right now, but free-falling into a bottomless abyss wasn’t in her top three. Or even her top ten.
She wasn’t Alice in fucking Wonderland.
The trickle of small rocks tumbling off the edge snapped her back to reality. The white specks quickly disappeared into the surrounding darkness. Now wasn’t the time to daydream about what-ifs. Not when she was standing on a tiny ledge and surrounded by tons of rock and dirt. She glanced over the edge. She was more than halfway, but there were still a few hundred feet more to go until she reached the ‘bottom.’
“Watch your step.” Chay’s voice crackled through her earpiece, fading in and out, his Atlantean accent thicker than normal. The Atlantean co-director of the excavation’s tone was edged with unabashed excitement. A contrast to his normally stoic nature. “It’s been over ten thousand years since anyone has entered the cavern. We don’t know what state the temple will be in.”
If it was still down there.
The void beneath her seemed to grow larger by the second. Was this another dead end? After three seasons of working on site, she sure as hell hoped not. Rieka had religiously followed all the directions her mom had left her. She would finish what Lilian Sinha had started, no matter the cost.
A drone, no bigger than a swallow, hovered in front of her, its high-pitched hum growing progressively more annoying. It had been dutifully and silently following her until now. It beeped before a pulsating white light lit up the cavern, almost blinding her. The rocky ledge she precariously stood on seemed even smaller in the bright glare.
“Initial recon identified a potential stone floor three hundred feet below your current position,” Chay interrupted. “The atmosphere has a higher-than-expected level of carbon monoxide. The concentration appears to be stable. For now.”
If Chay thought that was going to stop her from exploring, he didn’t know her very well. She touched her pendant; the familiar shape sent a wave of calmness through her. No bigger than her palm, five interlinked circles made up the body of the pendant, with a trident running through the center. It had no monetary value, but it was one of the few items her mom had left her. A good luck charm that she never took off.
“Once on the ground, you have fifteen minutes before you have to begin your ascent,” Chay said. Then he added, “Don’t make me come and get you.”
It wasn’t an empty threat.
“Got it.” Rieka tugged at her harness, scrunching her nose at the faint scent of rotten eggs drifting toward her. She tapped the camera on her shirt as she turned the mode to infrared. “Visual confirmed.”
Time for her best Alice impression. Rieka yanked the rope one last time before she took the first step over the edge. Each step was painstakingly slow as she descended the sheer rock face. The drone’s steady glow illuminated her path.
“Two hundred and fifty feet.” Chay’s voice sounded scratchy and distant. “In another thirty feet, you should reach the bottom.”
Rieka squinted into the darkness. White specks of stone glittered just out of her reach. She jumped away from the rock, sliding down the rope the last few feet, until she tentatively stood on the uneven ground. One last tug of the rope, and she quickly unclipped herself and secured it as best she could. The drone’s beeping grew increasingly louder as it started flashing white, blue, and purple, as if it was a disco ball. It had identified something.
“We may have found it, Mom,” she whispered to herself. Adrenaline bubbled through her as she wiped her gloved hands against her cargo pants. “Dim the light.”
The drone obeyed.
For the first time in a decade, the old familiar wish that she had inherited the heightened senses of her Atlantean ancestors washed over her, but she pushed it down where it belonged. Wishes couldn’t create miracles or bring back the dead. It wasn’t like her mixed human and Atlantean heritage had ever helped her. As a hybrid, it had just made her an outcast in both worlds.
A crumbling archway protruded from the wall. Small chips of rocks and dust shimmered in the artificial light. On closer inspection, the fragmented floral design took on a far more macabre aesthetic, as if something were dripping from the petals. She pressed herself against the archway. If she squinted, the pigment had a reddish tinge to it.
“Chay.” She tapped her watch, but a black screen stared back at her. The drone’s light flickered three times, as if it was asking for help, before falling to the ground with a soft thud.
Protocol was to return to the surface when comms were down, but she was too close to the temple to leave. The silence was eerily claustrophobic as she walked through the archway, her white flashlight only illuminating what she pointed it at, but even the lack of light could not hide the sheer size of the cavern. This was no small sanctuary that had been built to be forgotten.
Pale blue lights twinkled around her, creating an otherworldly glow. The ruins of an ancient temple peeked through the darkness as she crept through the cavern. Crumbling columns encircled the path, and faded paint stained the dark stone. Rieka shone the light on the pillars that seemed to never end, they almost reached the high dome ceiling. This close to the columns, the feeling of insignificance was hard to ignore. But there was no sign of a tomb.
Time had not been kind to the temple.
“It must represent the original Houses of Atlas,” she said as she tapped the small camera strapped to her chest. She tapped again. It had stopped recording.
She glanced at the blank face of her watch. Again. Still nothing. There must be some sort of interference. It suited her mood. She wanted this moment to be just hers. The tracings of the closest columns were indecipherable, as if someone had attempted to remove what had originally been carved on it by scratching the surface. Rieka angled the light at the next one. They were all identical.
A small shiver ran through her as she turned around. It was still going to be the find of a lifetime. The century. She was standing in the first Atlantean temple constructed after the destruction of Atlantis. But it wasn’t what Rieka was looking for.
The legendary tomb of Vandana, the last queen of Atlantis, was still out there. It was believed that the tomb had the coordinates for the missing isle of Atlantis and the lost treasures of the royal house. But that had never mattered to her. Finding the final resting place of Vandana had been her mother’s dream, and Rieka had inherited it.
Rieka walked between the columns, following the beaten path. The white light created ominous shadows the deeper she went into the cavern. It was almost time she made her return to the surface, but there was a quiet voice urging her forward. The light shone on a thick silvery web, dense enough that she couldn’t see what was on the other side. In the corner, a glimmer of rose-gold caught her attention.
Goose bumps exploded all over her body, her hands clammy as she tightened her grip on the flashlight. Her skin crawled. She did not do spiders.
Rieka glared at the web, slowly following the edge with the light. There. It hadn’t been a trick of the light. The brilliant tile appeared like a beacon through the web.
For a moment, she thought about waiting for the others—but no. This was her time, even if it meant getting up close and personal with the spider web that had manifested itself from her nightmares. She put the flashlight in her mouth to free her hands, shuddering at the cold taste of metal.
“No fucking spiders!” She sure as hell hoped the spiders could understand her.
She closed her eyes as she stuck her hands deep into the web. And pulled. Nothing happened.
“Damn it.”
The weaving skills of an arachnid would not beat her, even if it was the size of a big dog, judging by the thickness of the web. Squaring off, she grabbed hold of the coarse strands with both hands and pulled, leveraging off the wall.
Rieka stifled a scream as she hit the ground, hard. Pain radiated up her back as the web settled over her. A loud clang echoed as her flashlight rolled away, towards the column. Thousands of small black dots appeared from nowhere, instantly changing the color of the strands from silvery white to black. She almost gave herself whiplash at the speed she moved. “Get off me.”
Manically she began patting every part of herself. Goose bumps exploded over her body as she triple-checked that none of the baby spiders had hitched a ride. Her heart continued to race. “I. Hate. Spiders!”
She stepped over the offending web as she scooped the flashlight off the ground. The light flickered as she increased the brightness. The rose-gold tile was part of a much larger intricate mosaic. A beautiful woman dressed in glittering armor stood alone on a white beach, with a bloody sword laying at her feet. Flame-colored eyes blazed with fury as she held out her hand. A violet flame licked at her fingers.
Vandana, the last queen of Atlantis, defiantly stared back at her. They had always depicted the queen as a martyr, mother, or maiden—never as a warrior. But that was not what held Rieka’s attention. Vandana’s eyes seared straight into her soul with a flame-like intensity—a color she had never seen depicted in any other Atlantean image. Or in any living being. The orange seemed to meld into the red, achieving the appearance of a flickering fire.
They were the same eyes Rieka saw every time she looked into a mirror. It was the only evidence of her Atlantean heritage.
Everything around her slowed as she continued to stare at the mosaic—her mind going through a thousand scenarios, but none of them made sense. She traced the edge of the cool tiles, trying to imprint the image into her memory. Time had run out. She took one last look before she dragged herself away. But the same question haunted her every step. The voice growing incessantly louder as she tugged the rope, ready to begin the laborious ascent.
Why did she have the same eye color as Vandana, the last queen of Atlantis? Rieka shook her head trying to clear the thousands of errant thoughts that threatened to rise up and overwhelm her. Rieka glared into the darkness, a ragged breath escaped her as she shook. The flashlight wavered; it was barely a blip in the never-ending void. There was no denying what she had seen in the temple, the mosaic was unmistakable.
She had less than twenty-four hours to work out what her connection to Vandana was. Before the rest of the team started to ask questions she couldn’t answer.