“I can try,” Ellene insisted. “I’ll try to feel for smooth rock, something finished.”
“It can’t hurt if you can do it while we walk.” Jayme was already moving around the lake’s outer edge, starting off an a somewhat arbitrary direction.
“I should be able to.”
“If it goes too slowly, we can always jump back on the noru,” Andru suggested.
Vi gave him a nod and they started along the water.
She felt small pulses emitting from underneath Ellene’s feet with every step. The girl’s eyes closed from time to time, but she never ran into a single tree or bush. Even with her eyes closed, her magic mapped the forest for her into a sight beyond sight. Once in a while, she’d touch a tree, and Vi felt the same pulses vanish into the bark, down into the roots, and then fade past the realm of her perception.
“Wait, stop.” Ellene turned, looking to their right. She lifted a hand, pointing. “There’s something over there.”
“You’re sure?” Yet even as Jayme was asking, Vi could make out the outline of a shadow in-between the trees that she would’ve missed if not for Ellene.
“One way to find out.” Vi led the charge, away from the lake itself and back into the jungle.
Sure enough, not far from the water, stood a ruin. It was completely unmarked on any of her maps—like most were, but Vi couldn’t believe no one knew of its existence. It seemed too magnificent to leave lost to time.
“It looks almost like another fortress,” Ellene whispered.
“It does,” Vi agreed, her voice falling to a hush as well.
Large archways supported crumbling stone pathways between trees, draped with vines and moss. The skeletons of long-dead trees rotted in the shadow of the ruins, feeding newer life that would someday grow tall enough that their mighty roots would crack even more of the crumbling foundation.
It wasn’t as pristine as the first ruins Vi had discovered. But it was far more intact than those around Soricium. Perhaps this site was more removed, protected from anyone bothering it throughout the ages. Or perhaps it had once been so large, that even what was left after time had taken its toll still maintained breathtaking grandeur.
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Vi asked Ellene.
She shook her head. “Not outside of Soricium. It… I can’t describe it. It doesn’t look like the other cities in Shaldan.” She must’ve been truly confused, because she returned to her earlier sentiment. “It looks like the fortress—or an early version of it.”
“It’s incredible, whatever it is,” Andru whispered in awe. “This must be the place, right?”
“I think so.” Perhaps there were hundreds of ruins dotting the shore of the massive lake. But Vi didn’t think there were any that would look so grand. If any place was going to be an apex of fate, this would be it. “Let’s go in.”
“In?” Jayme caught her hand. “That’s a crumbling death trap.”
“Everywhere else, I’ve had to go in. I’ve had to stand right at the heart of it. There’s no time to waste debating this. You can wait out here if you’d like.”
“If you’re going in, then so are we,” Ellene declared. “We’ve come this far together. Besides, you have a Groundbreaker on your side. I’ll fix any cracking bits and keep us safe.”
“We won’t abandon you now,” Andru agreed.
“Fine. Even if I’m not completely thrilled by the idea…” Jayme looked uneasily up at the ruins.
Vi stared at her friends in wonder. Standing in front of ancient ruins that could well lead to their deaths, she felt the first cornerstone of something she could call “home” fall into place.
“Let’s go, then. Fate is waiting.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
They scrambledover large stones and other rubble as they neared the heart of the ruins.
Half perched in a tree, half supported by the stone that extended unnaturally from the earth, was a structure that looked more like the cathedrals to the Mother Vi had seen in her architecture books than anything Northern. It had pointed spires and more soaring archways to support its large columns.
“Where to from here?” Jayme asked as they climbed up a broken stairway to a wide platform.
“In there, I think.” Vi pointed across a crumbling bridge. “That looks like the center of it all.”
