42. Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter 42
D ante blinked as he grew used to the brightness. It was not what he had expected; the corridor was lined with beautiful ancient statues, each more elaborate and intricate than the previous one. It was an ancient grotto. But nothing compared to the woman who stood next to him. Her exhilaration pulsed through him; the intensity was palpable. Memories of almost forgotten emotions teased him, made him want more.
“The tomb may actually be here,” Rieka whispered. Hope tinged her words.
“Where to now?”
The renaissance masters of his childhood had not even come close to the realism of what he was looking at. Dante moved to the nearest one. A giant male towered over him. Sculpted entirely out of a pale pink marble. It was realistic enough that, for a moment, he wondered if he touched it, would it feel like flesh or stone? If the muscles would ripple under his fingers? The giant carried a trident in his right arm and wore a simple tunic that reached his knees. It was clearly a nod to their ancient seafaring history. The Atlanteans had ruled the seas long before their human counterparts; Atlantis itself had never left its island roots.
“Who do you think they are? Atlanteans?” Rieka asked, as she moved to stand next to him. “Or the Anki?” she added, whispering.
Rieka made it sound like saying their name out loud was sacrilegious and may transfer them some sort of power. Perhaps it was. The Atlanteans had tried to wipe out their existence from history for a reason.
She turned and smiled at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she gazed upon the statues. Her excitement was contagious. “It will take a lifetime to study them all.”
There was an element of bittersweetness in her tone. A lifetime for an Atlantean was thousands of years. For a hybrid, it could be as short as a human life span, barely over one hundred years. He pushed the dark thought away. For the first time, something other than his drive for power and wealth was influencing him. It was terrifying. The need to safeguard Rieka was paramount. She would baulk at a cage, but that wouldn’t stop him from ensuring that no one would think of harming her.
“Whoever they are, they were important enough to immortalize,” Dante answered after a few minutes. “Can you still hear the humming?”
“It is quiet here. Peaceful.” Rieka looked down at her arm. “It has stopped.”
“Good.”
But he was not so sure. There was something he was missing. An alien feeling that made him think that he had overlooked something important.
Rieka reached out, tugging at his neck, forcing him to lower his face to hers as she brushed her lips against his. His arm wrapped around her, pulling her closer, before he crushed her to his chest as he deepened the kiss, demanding her mouth open. She tasted of hope and life. Things he had never realized had been missing from his life. Until now.
She slowly pulled back, untangling herself, a pretty flush across her cheeks as she moved away. He wanted to keep her by his side, but he didn’t want to ruin this moment for her.
The giant life-sized statue in front of him was slightly different from the others. It towered over him, reaching seven feet. The stone was warm to the touch but smooth. He wasn’t certain it was an Atlantean. There was a sense of foreboding the artist had crafted on the masculine face. One that reminded him of the battlefield. The furrow of the eyebrows and pursed lips made the statue appear mid-speech. Two stone points protruded from its shoulders, but they appeared to be small lumps—perhaps they had been broken. They stuck out a few inches away from its carved armor. He walked toward its back, listening as Rieka continued to move farther into the hall. The loud thud of her boots on the stone floor echoed through the room. She wasn’t trying to be quiet. It made it easier for him to pinpoint her in the room as she bobbed and weaved through the other statues. Every few seconds, he caught a flash of neon-green curls. And a sputtering of excited curses. It gave him time to study the statue in front of him. There was a plaque near its feet. He kneeled, wiping the dust away. The language was not one he wholly recognized. The pictographs bore some similarities with ancient Atlantean but not enough for him to translate it.
An icy breeze slammed into him. Dante pulled the blaster out of the holster. Every part of him was on alert as he searched for Rieka. A breeze meant that there was another way into the hall. One they weren’t aware of.
“Rieka.”
Silence greeted him.
R ieka strode through the hall. The large lifelike statues were becoming more elaborate in design the farther she walked. The marble had changed to other colorful materials. Where the outer statues had been cast predominately with lighter colored marble the statues that surrounded her now ranged from alabaster white to midnight black, their poses more reminiscent of courtiers rather than the fishermen and warriors Dante and her had first seen. It would take decades to catalog them. She could convince Dante that she was the perfect person to oversee the project.
Each step was taking her closer to her mom’s dream. There was a sense of urgency she couldn’t quite shake. Rieka stopped and sniffed the air. The scent of pomegranate and amber slammed into her. Lilian’s scent. She needed to find the origin. Jogging through the rows of statues, Rieka paid little heed to what was around her, focusing on the scent. Suddenly it disappeared.
“Mom?” The word escaped her before the absurdity of it hit her.
A pale thin green curtain swayed in the soft breeze. It took her a moment to realize there shouldn’t be a breeze, not down here.
Wait for Dante.
That would be the smart thing to do, but there was a pull that was demanding her to go through and see what was on the other side. The bracelet no longer pulsed. It was the first time since she had put it on that it was truly quiet. But her pendant was going into overdrive. She pulled it over her head and held it; the metal was scorching hot, and she almost dropped it. The crystals had changed to a muted lilac, casting everything in an ethereal glow as she walked past the curtain. The area was larger than she had expected, but by now she shouldn’t be surprised. They built the Arx on a labyrinth, and on the ruins of something far older. A lone statue stood in the corner; half-hidden in the shadows. Rieka didn’t need a plaque to know who it was.
Vandana.
She moved without thinking and found herself in front of the life-size statue. Flowing red hair was loosely braided, falling halfway down the statue’s back; its sun-kissed skin revealed a smattering of pale freckles across the bridge of the nose. A loose golden tunic reached her ankles. Hands were clasped piously in front of her, but a sword lay discarded at her feet, surrounded by colorful lilies. Rieka took a step closer. Around its neck was the faint outline of a familiar pendant.
“What secrets were you hiding?”
The statue looked like she was about to come to life. A single tear marked her perfect features. It was like looking at a photo of her mom. Except for Lilian’s darker coloring, they were almost identical.
Why hadn’t Rieka noticed it before?
It had been over eleven thousand years, but the pendant would finally be returned to its rightful owner. Rieka stood on her toes and slipped the necklace over the Vandana’s head, carefully fixing it until it was perfect.
She noticed it then.
A large white marble box lay behind the statue. Large enough to be a coffin. Rieka couldn’t tear her gaze away from it. This could be the final burial place of Vandana. Everything she had been working toward. She needed to find Dante; this was as much his find as hers. Placing the backpack on the ground, she cursed at the damn blaster. It was sacrilegious wearing it in the temple. She placed it against the wall. Down here she was safe enough—there was only one way in. And she had the knife.
Rieka moved to the white coffin. She didn’t know where to look or start.
The door behind her opened. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. It was the only warning sign she got.
“Rieka.”
The voice sent a chill through her. It wasn’t Dante, but she recognized the subtle Atlantean accent. It didn’t belong here.
“Idris?”