The buzzing sound got louder as we climbed. One yard, two, a few more, and then…
Garrick grabbed my waist and hauled me against him with one hand. His sword was already drawn and ready in the other. At my side, Isanara flared her wings wide and then snapped them in tight.
“What is this?” he demanded, glaring down at Tomin.
The acolyte was not cowed. “They began arriving a week ago from all over Velora,” he said. “Word has spread that the curse may finally be lifted.”
The ridge curved around in the shape of a crescent moon. We stood at one end. Perhaps a mile away, at the other end and seated down in the valley, was the temple. And below the ridge, in the valley between this mountain and the next, there were dozens of fires. I could make out the shape of hobbled-together tents. The humming sound we heard was actually hundreds of sounds, maybe as many as a thousand. Voices.
At my side, Isanara dipped her head and chewed on her claws. The grinding sound of her fangs against her claws disappeared into the hum from below.
A sharp pain twisted my stomach. “I did not know there were this many people left in Velora.”
The talismans weighed heavily in my pocket. No matter what Maura and the king’s intention for them was, they had not been made to protect the humans.
“Have there been fights?” Garrick asked sagely.
Tomin nodded. “A few. A lot of people and not enough food. It is unavoidable. But if we go along the ridge, we can mostly avoid them. The temple guards have maintained a perimeter around the temple. Only a few people are allowed through at a time to make offerings at the external altars.”
Isanara’s tail whipped around so fast it hit the back of my calf.
What is it?I snapped.
She whacked me with her tail again. You do not have to take that tone with me.
You are going to gnaw off your own talon. What is wrong?
Isanara swiveled her head in the serpentine motion that usually meant irritation.Do you feel comfortable around this many people?
No.
My familiar was bigger than a horse, now. She’d grown rapidly in the last month. If this continued, she’d be full-grown, at least by the standard of legends, within the year. But even so, I did not want her anywhere near that mass of people.
“Thank you for coming to get us,” I said to Tomin. “Lead on, please.”
We’d playedout the scene six times before. Tomin woke us at dawn. We paraded around the altars while Varian and Tomin offered prayers. Then we marched out the rear door of the temple. There was a familiarity to it, but it was not a comforting one.
This was the Unknown Gate. Syleris’ domain.
The rear of the temple was private, lined with guards on each side of the walled rear garden to keep it so. Varian must have summoned them from other temples. I’d never seen more than half a dozen at a time. Now there were at least four times that many.
They held back the crowd that had gathered in the valley, but they were an audience in their own right.
“You may proceed together,” Varian said.
My hand was already in Garrick’s. I cast a skeptical glance over our surroundings. The rear garden was bare and untended. Tomin had told me at one of the previous gates that the later ones were not kept ready for supplicants, since they so rarely made it far enough to merit the effort. Garrick and I were the first supplicants to reach the Unknown Gate.
There was no gate or exit from the garden. Just a low wall about the height of my waist, lined with guards, and the slopinghills of snow on the other side that eventually gave way to the mountains.
“What now?” Garrick asked.
With one hand in his, the other on Isanara’s back, I took a deep breath. “I expect we are about to find out.”
Together, we took a step. Our forward feet never touched the ground.
It was just like before, when Syleris had transported us from the presence chamber to our bedroom. Or the times that he’d pulled me from my reality to his, first when I’d bargained for Kyrelle and then in the Memory Gate.
I was not used to the sickening feeling, but at least I knew it would end.
