“He is a Vareth. His duty as your familiar is to guard your steps. Even if you left Nexus behind, he would appear at your heel again. Such beasts are not governed by doors or distance. They go where they will.”
She still couldn’t understand why such a creature would choose her to protect.
They descended the stairs slowly, sand and gravel crunching underfoot. There were no other animals in sight. No birds. No plant life other than the Blood Blooms and desiccated weeds on the cliffside. Even the wind was fetid.
“There’s no life here.”
“No,” Rune said quietly. “This place feeds on all living things. And if we’re not careful, it may feed on us, too.”
She followed his stare to the shallow cave within the cliffside.
The entrance to Khar Avalen rose from the earth like a memory carved in stone.
Two colossal guardians flanked the doorway, their forms half-man, half-beast, frozen in eternal vigilance. Scaled armor clung to their bodies, ribs and sinew rendered in ancient stone, each holding a spear taller than any tower in Argyle. Their faces were monstrous things of horn and fire, jaws split by fangs, empty, hollow eyes.
Between them stood the door.
A single slab of dark rock engraved with spirals and concentric sigils whose meaning had been forgotten in every age after the First. The carvings twisted inward like a great eye that seemed to watch whoever dared stand before it. When mist rolled across the courtyard steps, it gathered at the door’s base and seeped into the grooves as if feeding something asleep beneath the surface.
Alora stood still beside Rune, wind tousling her hair. “I have heard stories of this place but never dared to come myself.”
“Nor did I,” he murmured.
Her throat tightened with dread, but she came too far to turn back now.
When she took the first step on the stairs, the ancient braziers that lined the stairway and entrance, instantly sputtered to life, flames guttering orange against the cold mist. They gave off no warmth. Flames now lit the statues eyes, flickering light that made the darkness look like it moved.
The thick scent of dust and iron and secrets that had survived the fall of kings and Titans alike. Seeing it in person, the illustrations in her book didn’t compare to the real thing.
The ruins didn’t feel abandoned.
Merely waiting for the next soul.
Her heartbeat raced, her body growing tense. Every instinct screamed not to go in there, but she knew everything she needed to know waited behind that door.
“Alora.” Rune took her elbow when she moved forward and pulled her back from the stairs. “Do not touch that door.”
She frowned. “But we came here for answers.”
“To receive, one must first give,” he said, eyes never leaving the stone giants. “Entering without an offering would wake the wrath of the watchers.”
Mist drifted along the carvings, as if listening.
A beat. A silence heavy enough to bow the air.
“What kind of offering?” she asked quietly.
He glanced down and she followed his stare to the ground where an ancient array had been carved into the stone. The crevasses were dark, choked with rust-brown stains.
Blood.
She would need to spill her own to enter.
Rune finally looked at her. That gaze was a storm, wrapped in a hunger that was painfully mortal now.
“I will not allow that,” he said, cupping her cheek.
Her skin warmed beneath his palm. “Then how do we enter?”
