He nodded with a sigh of relief and held out his hand, “Come on, we’re almost there.”
She took his hand and let him pull her through the maze of tunnels, until they finally stopped at a ladder going up several stories.
“Go ahead, climb.”
She huffed, looking up at the height of the ladder and thinking at least she had gotten a lot of practice over the past week climbing up and down rope ladders.
“Can you go any faster?” Adonis called from below.
She looked down at him a few rungs below her and stuck her tongue out before pulling herself up rung by rung a little quicker.
“So helpful, Kamira.” He scoffed and she could practically hear his eye roll. “Once you make it to the top, you are going to have to push hard to open the door. It’s covered in sand, and I don’t know how much might have accumulated over it recently.”
“How heavy? Maybe you should have gone first.”
“Well, it’s a little late for that now isn’t it? You will just have to use all your strength,” Adonis grumbled.
Kamira groaned when she finally made it to the top and pushed against the small wooden door there. It didn’t budge. “Uh, it won’t move, Adonis.”
All she could hear was quiet mutters beneath her. “What do I do?”
“Push harder.”
“I’m pushing as hard as I can!”
“I seem to recall you are a Legion who is capable of moving earth? Bend the sand above it.”
Kamira glared down at him and sighed, closing her eyes and feeling the earth just past the door. She pushed and heard the muffled shifting overhead as she moved the sand away. This time, when she pushed against the wooden hatch, it opened easily. A few tendrils of sand fell inward as she climbed out onto the beach.
Adonis coughed beneath her, cursing as he climbed that last few rungs, joining her on the beach before shutting the door and covering it with a heaping pile of sand once again. He shook his head, sand flying from his hair.
“Where are we?” She looked around at their surroundings. They were on a secluded beach, the ocean’s waves crashed behind her sending ripples of water across the shore.
“We’re on the eastern beach, about a mile outside the city. Come on, we need to get you back to the ship. You should go home, Kamira. Go back to Torheim, to mom and dad,” he said, heading up the beach. “Your gifts have grown significantly. Mother can help you control them.”
“Wait! I can’t leave. I haven’t gotten what I came here for.”
Adonis stopped, shoulders sagging. “Right. The Temple. You’re really going to go with this crew there? Join them on their quest for some curse that you don’t even know if it exists?”
“I am. I promised them I would help and I’m not going to go back on my word.”
He brought a hand through his auburn waves and sighed. “All right, listen, I can tell you where the Temple is, but you have to promise me two things.”
“Anything.”
“Once you are done there, you go straight back to Torheim.”
“Okay,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. She wouldn’t tell him that she would be dead if she went back there. She wasn’t one to lie to her brother, but he didn’t know what going home would mean. He didn’t know what she had done. “What's the second thing?”
“You can’t tell anyone at the Temple what you are. They can’t know that you are a Legion. Do you understand?”
“Why not?”
“Just trust me and promise.” His eyes were intense, like a ten foot wave threatening to crash down upon her.
“Okay, I promise,” she said, looking away from him, not wanting him to see the lie on her face.
He sighed in relief. “Good. Now where is this ship you came here on?”
