Stone groaned. "Commander, if you're going to call me pretty names can you at least save it for when you're in my bed and not climbing to your certain death?"
Her faint laugh echoed up the hatch. "Sorry,darling."
“I’m serious,” he said, heat rising to his cheeks, the back of his neck. “Pay attention to your footing, you don’t know how old that ladder is.”
Her sigh drifted up through the hatch and settled around him. “Scared of a little adventure, Odega?” Another step down. Another damning creak.
Scared of whatever is sure to be lurking at the bottom, he thought.Scared of the teeth ripping through my stomach.
Once Aesira was fully on the ladder, he handed her the torch and began his descent. Slowly, one unstable rung at a time, they made it to the bottom. The light from the torch flickered across cracked walls. Dead vines wove through the room, tangling with forgotten webs. More moths fluttered in the air, circling around the light of the torch. Stone covered his mouth with the back of his hand as dirt kicked up beneath their boots.
“Over here,” Aesira whispered but her voice carried through the chamber as if she were yelling.
That’s what they were in.
A chamber.
Every which way they turned was a different tunnel. Each one full of shadows and a promise of a disastrous end. The tunnels were wide, easily enough space for the entire crew to walk shoulder to shoulder, proving the expanse of not just this ruin, but of Ravki.
If the king was hiding here, it would be almost impossible to find him.
“Stone, look.” Aesira held the torch to a wall where symbols were etched into the granite. “What does it say?”
He wiped the dust off his glasses and stole the torch from Aesira so he could hold it closer and get a better look. The symbols were carved deep. Large swirls followed by small triangles.
Runes.
“This is ancient Ravkian,” he said, sweeping his finger over a large rune. “Protection.” He swept his hand across the ancient wall, scattering a few loose pebbles to the ground. “And this”— his fingertips brushed against the largest rune—“is for light.”
“Protection and light.”
He nodded. “Protection, light”—his fingers were frenzied, running across the wall—“Harmony, peace, balance. Magic.” His eyes darted to hers for a moment before he moved to the last rune where his fingers stilled, ice splintering through his veins, that monster in his gut opening its maw and ripping at his middle.
“What is it?” Aesira traced the rune in front of them. “Stone?”
“Drako.” The Ravkian word rolled off his tongue, lit a fire to something deep in his belly. “Dragon.”
Aesira stiffened next to him, lacing her fingers with his. “We should look a little further.” She made to walk away but he pulled her back.
“Something isn’t right here. It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in years. It’s unlikely Desmond—”
She pulled her hand away. “I just need a few more minutes,” she said. "I just have to be sure he's not here."
She grabbed the torch and spun toward one of the hallways.
“Aesira, you’re wasting your time.”
She stopped, her boots digging into the ground, dust and dirt billowing out from beneath them.
“There are no boot prints other than our own,” Stone said. “The dust on the ladder was inches thick.” He took a tentative step toward her. “I’m not saying he isn’t in Ravki, I’m just saying he isn’there. There are dozens of other buildings, Aesira. He could be in any one of them.”
She spun so quickly the fire on the torch flickered, nearly going out. “He has to be,” she said, “and I have to find him.”
She closed her eyes, her shoulders slumping forward. “I can’t go back without him. I can’t fail again.” She bit her lip on the last word, like she didn’t mean to say it. “We don’t have time to comb through each building. It would take weeks.” She threw her arms wide and spun around. “Look at them! They’re massive, Stone. The search would be endless.”
“Then we return to Vargah and have your sister send a larger crew.”
Her laugh was humorless. An empty, cold, sound that raised the hair on his arms. “You don’t know anything, Odega.”
