Sonara hadn’t meant to make him dothis,she thought pointedly, as she looked at the ancient red door.
She wasn’t sure what she’d hoped for, exactly, when she questioned him only an hour ago. Answers about Soahm, perhaps, or some knowledge about what the Wanderers were doing, and how to shut them down.
Certainlynotan ancient red door in the middle of the very cave they’d spend their time hiding in.
A door that had kept Thali seated in silence behind her bone mask, as the Wanderer slept beside her, his raw surge of power having stolen every ounce of energy from him.
“Terra magic,” Thali said. A torch flickered in her bone-gauntleted fist. The light cast an eerie shadow across her Canis mask. “It is the greatest, rawest power of the Children of Shadow, for it is a connection to the Great Mother herself. A power I have not seen before in the flesh.”
“And the door?” Azariah asked. She looked at the Wanderer; the blood on his head, dried black as the blood that ran through all their veins, except Thali’s. “What do you think…”
Sonara could sense the princess’ curiosity. But among it was also fear.
The aura was thick and oily on Sonara’s tongue, coming off Azariah in waves as she looked from the Wanderer to the red door and back at Thali again. “Is it…”
Sonara knew what the princess was leaning towards. Knew it, because just the night before, they’d spoken of such impossible truths, about the first Shadowblood, and the heart of the planet. But it was only a tale. A tale that had begged her to listen and hadfeltlike a deep history of Dohrsar, nonetheless.
Now the door felt like another page of that story. Another chapter to the ancient tome that was the beginning of Dohrsar.
“Perhaps it belongs to one of the old kings. An old storage hideout, or bunker,” Markam said, as he gave up on trying to open the door. He’d even foolishly kicked it with his boot, earning a yelp and a bruised toe.
“Possible,” Sonara said. She looked at the princess. “Do you know if your father has secret hideouts across the Deadlands?”
Azariah nodded. “Of course he does. What royal wouldn’t, when the history between all three kingdoms has always been war? But… I’m not sure he would have created one this hard to reach, and this far from the palace.”
Markam lifted a dark brow. “What, you mean he didn’t stash a door hidden behind a solid wall of rock, only accessible by a Wanderer-turned-Shadowblood’s strange new Terra magic?”
Thali gave her torch to Sonara. She knelt before the door to examine the symbols. “All my life I have studied. All my life I have committed myself to worshipping Her. But I have never felt so close.”
“What do you mean?” Sonara asked.
Thali breathed out slowly. “These are the Great Mother’s symbols.”
With trembling hands, she reached out, her bone gauntlets stark against the red door. She pressed her fingertips to the symbols, and her whole body seemed to shiver. “The planet has spoken to the Wanderer, calling to his magic.” She glanced back to Sonara, the torchlight flickering behind the Canis’ jawbone. “Just as she spoke toyou,Devil, to bring your sword to strike the Wanderer’s heart, and draw him back as a Child of Shadow made anew.”
“What do the symbols mean?” Sonara asked.
Her heart had begun to hasten its pace. Her curse, curled up in its cage, winked open an eye again and began to sniff the air, as curious as ever.
“I cannot be certain,” Thali said. “But I believe this door leads to a sacred place. One that may very well contain the heart of Dohrsar itself.”
In any other time, Sonara would have laughed.
But now that conversation she had with Azariah, deep in the shadows, felt all too much like a history lesson instead of a fireside tale.
Across from them, the Wanderer groaned and began to wake.
“Start a fire,” Sonara said to Azariah. “We’re going to have a talk with our Wanderer, and see just what fate Thali’sGreat Motheris leading us to.”
Chapter 26
Karr
He was in the half-place again.
But today the scenery had changed, a throne room swapped out for the shores of an ancient, endless sea. The waves were split down the center, rolling towards where Karr stood, barefoot upon a grey sand shore.
He stared out at the sea, wondering which side, given the chance, he would choose.
