I began to read, parsing out the crafted letters, and translated, “None but I, none but Auriel who fell. Auriel who was a God named a Guardian. Auriel who represented the Green Ray. Auriel who took the secrets of the light and the Valalumir to his grave. None but I, none but Auriel alone.” Beneath the words was an imprint.
A hand.
Auriel laid his palm on top, then pressed down, his fingers fitting perfectly into the indentations.
Auriel, himself, was the key.
Green light—emerald green—the very green I would know with all of my soul at the end of eternity, began to emanatefrom his skin. The light pulsed and expanded, rising up Auriel’s golden arm, and then across what remained of the Guardian’s black stone body.
Squinting in the overwhelming brightness, I let the light of my stave flicker out, and stepped back. The ground began to shake, and thunder clapped in the sky as lightning struck the ocean behind us. A gale force wind blew against us and Auriel yelled out as he fought to keep his hand on the statue.
There was another clap, and Auriel fell, his back hitting the ground as I rushed to him, helping him to sit up. His eyes widened, and he pointed back at the tomb.
The Guardian’s body split in half, both parts sliding across the sand away from each other. I gasped, and stood up, my entire body aglow in green, and reached out a hand for Auriel. He stepped forward and the stones stilled, the light fading just enough to reveal what had been tucked inside.
Auriel. Himself.
Like with Asherah, there was a golden coffin, sculpted into his likeness. The details were so exact, I had to look away. He looked too real. He lay on his back, his hands folded together across his chest. Without any hint of coloring, the blond of his hair, the tan of his skin, his likeness to Rhyan was even more shocking.
Tears blurred my vision.
The carving of his body, much like Asherah’s, had a space open beneath his hands. In Asherah’s tomb, we’d found her stave in that spot, along with the indigo shard. Moriel’s shard.
My heart pounded as I spotted a cylindrical golden case, encrusted with sparkling gemstones of every color. It looked like the sort of ceremonial cases we used to house important scrolls in the temple.
“Auriel’s Valya.” He reached for the casing, pulling it out from his coffin’s hands.
“The secret for the cure,” I whispered.
Auriel nodded.
The ground seemed to groan, along with the thundering sound of the slabs of stone grinding against the sand as they retracted. Just as we’d seen in Asherah’s tomb, Auriel’s was resealing itself, until the stones were once more bound together.
The sound of waves filled my ears. Suddenly Auriel turned, and shouted in terror. “Get down!”
My back hit the ground, but gently. Auriel’s arm had wrapped around me, taking the brunt of my fall, his body like armor over mine as the ocean ejected the Guardian’s head. There was a cracking sound, like thunder, but the head was restored. The statue, the tomb, whole once more.
“Lyriana Batavia!” Turion Dairen had arrived.
Auriel raced past the Guardian, and I followed. Three seraphim touched down. Dairen led the charge with at least two dozen soturi behind him. Too many for us to take at once.
“You’re surrounded,” he yelled. “You have no chance of escape. You are under arrest by order of Emperor Avery for the murder?—”
Auriel grabbed my hand, and we took off, running in the opposite direction.
“What’s your plan?” I yelled.
“Just keep running.”
I looked back. They were gaining on us. “Auriel!”
“No,” he said. “No! We’ve come too far.”
But I could hear them yelling, their boots in the sand, their taunts rising above the salty ocean wind, the sound of seraphim flying overhead.
The waves began to crash into our boots, soaking our heels. The water was becoming more violent. More storm like. Yet the sky remained clear.
“What’s going on?” I asked, just as Auriel steered us away from the water. But the water kept coming until I was soaked to my knees.
