“They’re an artist?”
“Not a very good one.” I pushed the door open. It groaned against the floor, wood scraping stone as if something on the other side had been leaning against it for years. Dust spiraled outward, pushed by a gust of air from inside.
“I feel like we're back inside the labyrinth,” she said with a wry twist of her mouth.
I nodded and poked my head through the opening. The chamber soared three stories high, a cathedral converted to house birds. Ivy crawled across arched beams while chains rattled overhead. At the far end, a window revealed a late-day sky and a valley cut through with silver streams that shimmered despite the weak sunlight.
Wind slipped in through the gap beneath the window, stirring chains hanging from the ceiling, making them rattle like teeth in a skull. Rusted bird perches swayed in the breeze, creaking like old swings in a storm.
Farris remained in the hall, whining.
“He doesn’t want to come in with us,” Reyla said.
“He brought us here.”
“Is the key inside?” she asked her pet.
Our friend only stared at us forlornly.
The door slammed shut and the lock clicked. We were committed now.
Reyla gave me an uneasy look. “Might as well look around.”
Weapons in hand, she moved left. I went right.
Chains drifted overhead, clattering against little cages hanging by enchantment rather than rope. Some cages were open, their doors rusted ajar, while others had been bent into jumbled distortions.
Far above, ember feathers began to fall. One brushed mycheek. I caught it in my hand, but it crumbled into ash before I could close my fingers around it.
The tinkling bell rang out in the room.
A cry echoed from above, and we came to a stop, peering in that direction.
The air shimmered.
A phoenix appeared overhead with its wings spread. It soared around the upper part of the room, a glow building from deep inside it. Bells tinkled through the air, so soft, I almost couldn’t hear them.
When the glow turned into flames, the bird dove toward the floor, disappearing before it reached the lowest level, leaving only ashes sifting down to land around our feet.
“You saw the key on a chain around its neck?” she said.
I nodded.
“Too bad it vanished.” Turning to where she stood on the opposite side of the room, she peered at one of the ivy-covered walls. She reached out, tugging some of the vines to the side, staring at the wall.
What is it?I asked.
She didn’t look my way.One second.
I joined her, studying the circular set of carvings, small mural medallions almost hidden beneath the vegetation.
She brushed the surface of one, wiping soft moss away to reveal paint that appeared older than either of us. A red bird, its wings outstretched, had been carved into the face of the medallion. In the next, we found the same red bird, now glowing. In the third, it was diving, flames licking across its wings. In the fourth, ashes drifted to the ground.
“They look like story slices. A cycle,” she said under her breath. “Four phases in endless repetition: flight, flame,dive, ash.”
“The medallions match what we'd witnessed, a cycle driven by sound.”
She shrugged. “Perchance.”
