She screamed.
Kai froze and gasped into the obsidian stairwell, her thoughts caught in the trap of that long-ago memory belonging to a six-year-old child.
The female’s voice carried down to her. “Are you all right, Kai Silver Wolf?”
She swallowed, and her dry throat clicked. “How much longer?”
“It is just ahead.”
The steps began again, but Kai’s legs felt too heavy. Old blood stained her memories. Pitched screams—the final cries of entire families—rebounded in her ears.
Kai shut her eyes and imagined Fala’s soft smile in the morning. Her venturing caress. Whispers against her mouth. Her heartbeat slowed, and the weight that had locked her body evaporated like a sigh.
Chin raised, she climbed.
Candlelight soon filtered into the darkness, and the robed figure reappeared like an apparition. She waited at the top, just inside a vast, cavernous space.
Kai drew close and paused to await further instruction.
Inside the hood’s pale shadow, almond-shaped eyes—one brown, one blue—stared back. She was of the Unseen. A clan that might as well be outsiders and disliked by many for one simple reason. Their strange-eyed children were born at random within the nine clans and taken from their mothers at birth, hidden away for the rest of their lives.
“The Eternal One will be with you momentarily,” the Unseen said. “Please wait here.”
Kai entered the room—no, atemple. The mountain’sblack stone had been carved into a perfect hexagon with pillars and prayer bowls full of clean, still water. A monolith of pale stone etched with veins of gold rose from the center.
“They call this a Llinunae Stone.”
Kai startled at the voice suddenly filling the quiet like calm water.
A pretty, brown-skinned woman stood within a doorway on the far side, draped in loose gray fabrics. Her brown hair hung so long that it nearly swept the floor, and she, like all Unseen, had eyes of brown and blue.
Kai bowed at the waist to the Eternal One. “You wished to see me?”
The woman smiled. “We did, yes.”
A second woman wearing black robes blustered into the temple as if on command, a storm. She had the same brown skin tone, oval face, and high cheekbones that were common with their people. She also had the same large eyes, but her irises were as black as her hair.
The Eternal One gestured to the woman. “This is Soyala. Our seer.”
A small creature scurried into the room, scaled and winged, pearlescent white. It skittered up the Eternal One’s robes using long claws at the tips of short arms with tiny paws. Perched on her shoulder, it watched Kai with large blue eyes and a slight head tilt.
Kai fisted the bone pommel of her blade. “What is that?”
“A nuisance,” Soyala said, though she gave it a gentle pat on the head.
The Eternal One chuckled. “He’s harmless. Curious to see a new face, is all. He thinks you’re quite beautiful.”
Strange that she would speak for it, but ignoring the compliment wouldn’t be polite. “Thank you.”
Soyala circled Kai, black gaze analyzing her from bottom to top. “I was right.”
“Right about what?” Kai asked.
“The gods are fascinated by you.”
Kai turned with Soyala, never offering her back. “You brought me up here to talk about the gods?”
“So many voices,” the female muttered, “only one vessel. They all want to speak, but they never listen.”
