Meat.
She was glad to hear the sound of running water ahead of them, though she’d be damned if she drank any water in this place—likely literally so. The noise was a change, though, and it sounded almost normal. When she saw the stream, narrow as it was, it didn’t look to share much of the uncanny nature of its surroundings. It was only a rivulet running through the forest, though the tree roots hanging on to it did resemble fingers.
“Magic doesna’ cling well to water,” Erik said thoughtfully, sounding more Scottish than usual again. He knelt and examined the earth for a time, brushing aside fallen needles and leaves, frowning. “But the trail ends here. There are others, but I’ve no notion which to choose.”
“You might not need one,” said Toinette, looking through the trees in the direction from which the stream flowed. She thought she had seen stone—she ducked around one of the pines for a better view—
—and she cursed, quiet and disbelieving.
There was a temple in the middle of the forest.
It was still at least a day’s journey away, which made it all the more astounding. To be visible at such a distance, it had to be huge. Toinette couldn’t see details, and the trees did block much of the outline, but she could make out pillars, straight and smooth as ever came from the hand of a stonemason.
Erik, joining her, closed his eyes and shook his head. When he let himself return to vision a moment later, his head was still shaking, instinct denying what he was forcing his mind to accept. “But it would take a hundred men or more to build that,” he said, talking in theory to Toinette but truly to any sense of order in the world.
“It would,” she said. “And where would they have gotten the stone? Do you know any magic to make that appear?”
“No. Yes.” Erik drew the back of a hand across his mouth. “On that scale? I’ve only heard stories. They don’t say a very great deal abouthowto do it, just who does it. That’s Solomon, in most of them.”
Evensheknew that name: the king in the Bible, yes, but more importantly the greatest wizard among mortals. Merlin himself, Artair had said, had not been half so powerful, nor had half the command of demons.
“Ah,” said Toinette. Once she composed her thoughts, she could speculate on whether Solomon himself had built the structure or an equally powerful unknown or a demon, on what might be the most effective approach for each, and on the next steps. Just then, she could only ask one question, in the terms of her youth: “We’re buggered good and proper, aren’t we?”
Thirty-One
Because of the darkness, they didn’t look to the sun to tell them when to rest. They wouldn’t have needed to in any case—full dark simply made colors look less vivid to the dragon-blooded—but Erik had become used to war and making camp before his men’s sight became unreliable, and to the hours of the human world as a matter of course. Toinette, he suspected, was even more attuned to those than him.
None of that mattered in the depths of the forest. With only the two of them in the midst of deformed trees and wildlife, it was as though they’d left all the mortal world behind them. The structure ahead didn’t count. Whoever had built it had power enough not to be mortal in spirit, whatever his origins might be.
With nothing outside to tell time, Erik could only attend to his body, marking the growth of weariness and hunger—and so, he reflected, mortality came into play again. Or not, perchance. Even God had rested.
He could still hear the stream behind them when they came to a wide spot on the trail. It was nothing so spacious as a clearing, but there was enough room for the two of them to sit and for one to stretch out at a time. None of the blood-drinking vines grew within sight, and the trees were no more warped than ordinary.
“That place,” he added to Toinette when she stopped to see why he’d done so, “doesn’t look very far away now. Half the morning’s walk, or so. We could try to get closer, but…”
“No,” she said, anticipating the end of his sentence. “I don’t want to sleep too near it either.”
The ground rose and dipped, making distance difficult to judge and unpredictable to view, but they could see the overhang of a roof above the pillars and the beginnings of steps below. They made Erik think of Rome and the ruins of the ancient world.
Time moved on and took all with it. The past was darkness and savagery, and yet it stared them in the face a morning’s walk away.
Erik averted his gaze, which inevitably led him to Toinette. She blinked. “Yes?”
“You’re all I wish to look at,” he said, and made a face at the way it sounded.
Understanding, she laughed. “I’d be more flattered…oh, anywhere else in the world.” As if to illustrate, Toinette looked around too, and grimaced. “I’d as soon not build a fire. I know it’s cold.”
“We’ll not die of it,” Erik agreed. The cold was enough to be uncomfortable, even for them, but they’d take no lasting harm. The attention a fire might draw would likely be worse; even the idea of burning wood from such trees, of looking into the flames or breathing the smoke, held no appeal.
It wasn’t as though they had any need to cook either. Their food was dried bread and meat. If using the wood for a fire was an unsettling notion, hunting anything they’d seen was a repulsive one.
They ate sitting on the ground. The meat was greasy, and the bread stale. It would serve. It might have been best. Erik couldn’t imagine taking any joy from food in such surroundings. The cold, slimy smell was in his nostrils all the time. Even a king’s feast would have tasted of ooze and mud; better to have food not worth ruining.
Toinette ate with her knees drawn up against her chest. When she was finished, she wrapped her arms around her legs, heedless of modesty—though she did pull her skirt down as far as she could. Erik doubted that had much to do with the view. “Come here,” he said and held out an arm. “We’ll be warmer if we’re close.”
She needed no more encouragement to curl against his chest, wrapping her own arms around him. The dragon-blooded usually gave off more heat than mortals to the touch, but Erik could feel the chill of Toinette’s hands through his shirt, and he suspected the same was true of his. “I thought I’d done with cold places,” she said into his neck. “England was bad and Scotland worse.”
“What about Muscovy?”
