Shesighed, stifling a growl.“Fine.But so help your furless arse, if I see asingle spell.”
“I’llbe good.”
“Likefuck, you will.”
With agentle effort, she helped him crawl from the shade of his tent.The sunbakedstone burnt his fingers as he rose to his feet.Now that the day had advancedby several hours, the heat of the desert had settled into the formerly shadedcavern, and the light was now so bright it felt like a physical weight on hisskin, if not a couple knives stabbing through his eye.
Hestood as straight as he could, leaning against Zaria’s side, blinking throughthe glare.
To theirright, there lay the colossus, its scattered form so utterly massive that Isaacfound it difficult to view it as anything other than a collection of bonyhills.Rock and sand smothered the rest of the crater basin, piling into dunesand mountains.Above the spot where the obelisk once rested, there was a deepvalley wrenched through the high cliff walls, curved like a cage of ribs.Segments of the necropolis were visible amidst the rubble.It must have beenthe first time the buildings had ever been exposed.
Much ofthe cavern still lay in shade and darkness.The titan had only sundered a paththrough the middle of the rocky ceiling, leaving a good portion of the craterin shadow, like a half-blinking eye.
As helooked, he could see the Khador students making their way towards the ruins ofthe necropolis, their robes almost lost between the concrete, boulders, andsand.The crucified skeletons had been scattered amongst the mounds of ossein,the stars of the necromancer flags flapping in the breeze.Isaac continued tosweep his gaze, taking in the full scale of the destruction.
Eventually,he couldn’t resist any longer, and he gazed at the spot where Berith had died.
Hisbody was still there.In the bright sun, the skin was turning ashen, thespilled blood already thick and brown from the desert heat.Isaac could seelividity marks, sand collecting in the open eyes.He knew that exposure to thesun would accelerate the decomposition.His uncle would start to smell, beforelong.
Theworld spun again.Only Zaria’s grip kept him from fainting.
“Isaac,”she said.“I’m sorry.I know that—”
“No.”He swallowed, looking again.He kept his gaze centered on Berith, as if indefiance.“It had to be done.”
Zarianodded.“Right.Won’t argue otherwise.Just ...seemed like he was trying tosay something, at the end.”
“Whateverhe was going to say, it wouldn’t have made a difference.”
“Aye.Too little, too late.”
“Verymuch so.”
The sunwas hot and merciless.The wind was full of sand.
AsIsaac gazed over the corpse, watching the robes sway and flutter, he felt apressure building on his lungs.He tried to breathe, and he nearly vomited onthe spot.His knees quickly began to buckle.His anxiety spiked into terror.
Zariaturned him away, resting on a knee.“Right.As you say.There’s nothing overthere.Nothing you need to see any longer.”
Hisbody was chilled and heavy.Even the effort of standing was leaving himbreathless.As he caught his breath, and the world stopped lurching beneathhim, he saw the faintest hint of a building, through the distance and debris.It was fairly small, rectangular in shape, and the walls were nestled rightinto the bedrock of the cavern wall, such that it almost blended into the dirtand sand.No more detail could be seen through the gloom.
Butthere it was, all the same.
Unmistakable.
He hadimagined this building his whole life.He had been holding it in his mind’s eyeas he died of thirst in the desert.He had kept it in his thoughts all the waythrough the giant skeleton, from mouth, to neck, to chest, abdomen, pelvis, andall the way through the legs.After all the leagues he had travelled, all thetribulations he had suffered, he had come to the end of his journey.There wasnowhere else to go.
Zariaseemed to follow his gaze.“That’s it?Over there?”
“Yes.”
“Sureabout that?”
“Whatelse is left?”
Sheglanced back at his tent.“Aye, well, we got two good hands between us, and notmuch light in the day.Best we get packing.”
Helooked up at her.She cast a sharp figure in the sunlight.He looked at thescar on her eye, the gash on her nose, the tawny fur lining her cheeks andears.He felt both a warm and chilly sensation, deep in his chest, remindinghim of how he had felt back in the extraction chamber, when she had refused toleave him behind.
