No weakness. But we will destroy him.Her beast’s hackles rose in a wave of sapphire spikes.And it is nothismountain!
Dashiell shoved her shoulder, turning her to face the path once more. “No more talking. We’re in a hurry.”
They walked on in silence, each glancing toward the sky more and more often. Izzy was looking for Luka—maybe Dashiell was too—but no drakes appeared.
The path narrowed as they twisted further around the mountain. Their way grew more rock-strewn and uneven as they continued on, far past the furthest point she’d ever reached before.
As they wound closer to the rock face, she began to see niches carved into the mountainside, overgrown with weeds and vines. A few still contained ancient statues—too corroded and moss-covered to make out their features—carrying mottled green-and-gray lamps that looked likely to flake away at the slightest touch.
Slowly, she realized that the rocks beneath her feet, while jumbled by centuries of upheaval, were too uniform to benatural. Once, long ago, this was a paved path, lined with lanterns and statues.
The sun was lowering toward the growing bank of clouds on the horizon when the path curved sharply toward the mountain. At first, it almost appeared to end there, but Dashiell prodded her to push through a small gap in the wall of hanging brambles, and Izzy found herself in a narrow chasm, protected from the wind and salty air. It was warm and humid, the stone walls were covered with ferns and honey-bell flowers, and water dripped and splashed from somewhere nearby.
Here, the path was far better preserved, straight and even, leading to a short flight of stairs hewn into the rock. Each step glittered with the warm gold-brown sheen of bronze plating. Lanterns hung from iron chains embedded in the rocks, and she could imagine that when they were lit, the stairs would seem like a river of molten fire leading up into the mountain.
At the top of the stairs, a massive bronze door was inlaid with silver and gems to create the image of two vast dragons. One drake was a vibrant combination of carnelian, ruby, and topaz, seeming to glow with internal sunlight, even here in the gloom. The other was the deep sapphire, lapis, and obsidian of the midnight sky. Both were sinuously curled, biting each other’s tails in an endless loop. Day and night. Chaos and Order. Life and death. Two parts of the same magnificent, infinite spiral. Izzy had never imagined such a grand entryway… or such a heavy sense that the gods were close.
It was beautiful and intimidating, and she did not want to go in there with Dashiell at her back. As if sensing that she was about to bolt, he closed the gap between them, his blade slicing through her cloak once more.
Izzy swallowed her desire to scream and kept moving, stepping carefully up the ancient path. Large piles of stone rubble lay tumbled among the ferns, as if someone had spentweeks clearing rocks. A new ceramic lamp hung from a chain, its wick partly burned down, and as they got closer, she could see a myriad of dents and scratches that marred the stairs and the great door.
Not all of those scratches are from the landslide,her beast muttered darkly.
Izabel held in a gasp of horror. Thick grooves in the bronze drove toward the largest gems, too uniform to have been created by falling rocks. Someone had tried to dig them out with a chisel. She glared at Dashiell over her shoulder. “You tried to take them!”
“I couldn’t get them off anyway. They were embedded with something more powerful than anything we have now. I would have had to take the whole door down, and I couldn’t do that on my own.” He tilted his chin toward the doorway. “Keep moving.”
The door opened easily under her hand, and she stepped forward into the ruins of a huge stone temple. The first thing she noticed was the humidity, then the heat and the scent of lush foliage. Dim light filtered down in dusty shafts from high above. As her eyes adjusted, she saw what looked like might have once been sky-lattices. The shafts would have been lined with mirrors and covered with stained glass, directing glorious colored light into the temple. Now, only a few remained. Their mirrors were cracked and warped, and the lattices contained only fragments of shattered glass.
Enormous broken statues lined the walls—great dragons carved from ophite—dark green stone with white veins and a dull sheen. A few remaining wings and visages hinted at how imposing they must once have been with their wings spread wide, tips touching, side by side, spanning the length of the hall.
At her feet, cracked and broken marble tiles led from the entrance toward what once must have been a magnificent hall, but was now littered with great chunks of fallen rock andscattered puddles. The puddles steamed slightly, and the floor felt warm, even through the leather of her boots. The far end of the hall was cast in dark shadow, too thick to make out what stood there, if anything.
The growth of centuries climbed over it all. Moss, ferns, and waterblossom grew everywhere. Rampant everlasting silverbush and viper’s hemp suggested some of the plants had escaped from a healer’s garden. It would have reminded her of the heated pools she’d swum in with Luka, but for the silence. No chorus of frogs and insects broke the heaviness in this air.
Izzy’s beast stretched and turned in her belly. Heat and power seeped through its hide until Izzy felt as if something glowed deep inside her. It buzzed beneath her skin like an itch she couldn’t quite scratch, or a crick in her back she could release if only she could twist into just the right position. But before she could, a flint struck steel and, moments later, light flared, dragging her attention away.
An area had been cleared through the dust and fallen debris, creating an open space about the size of her shop floor, surrounded by piles of rock. On one side of the open area, a strangely shaped heap drew her attention, and she took a step forward before realizing the horrible truth. It was a mound of bones.
The pile of skeletons came up to her waist, stacked haphazardly in a grim repository of death and destruction. Unlike the rest of the wreckage, there was nothing natural about the macabre collection. Whatever great disaster had befallen the temple, it did not throw those ancient bones together.
She spun toward Dashiell, struggling to force the words out past her horror. “What have you done?”
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Luka pushedhis way out of the prison cell and ran. He didn’t stop to greet anyone or to explain why the knight commander was sprinting down corridors and up stairs toward the Tower of the Weave. He simply put his head down and ran. Aiden had heard everything he had. Luka trusted him to do what needed to be done.
He flung open the wooden door and strode onto the battlements, stripping as he went. He grabbed a massive leather satchel from one of the pegs and shoved his armor and weapons inside before moving onto the center of the landing area.
By the time he fell to his knees, whispering prayers and calling to the gods, he was already more beast than man. He held out his arms and howled as the magic poured into him, hotter and faster and more potent than ever before. His beast’s roar joined his own, and for the first time in his adult life, they were entirely unified in their purpose: get to Izzy.
He snatched the satchel up in a claw and leaped up to the battlements, and then, so quickly that it was almost one movement, he threw himself off. He beat his wings hard to lift him high enough to sail swiftly over the castle, past the huge marble staircase thronged with visitors, over the top of thewinding streets, and then above the market with its colored, woolen streamer canopies and the lengthening shadows below. Squalling wind buffeted him as the pressure began to drop. Rain was coming.
He folded his wings to dive into a sharp plummet and landed hard in the narrow, cobbled alley beside Izzy’s shop. There was no time to hesitate, and—whether it was because he’d shifted so many times recently or because he was so focused on getting to Izzy, it was impossible to tell—the shift came brutally fast. It was so quick that he hardly noticed the rough pain as scales parted, bones realigned, and his beast faded.
Last time he was there, Izzy had set her hand on his back and comforted him. Why hadn’t he told her how precious her touch was? How much he needed her. That he would do anything for her to be happy.
