Royo puts his hand on the key, turns it, and the lock clicks. The thick, frosted-glass door opens straight down, revealing white stairs that lead to pitch blackness.
Stars.
I take a step back, blinking hard. Then I shake my surprise.
If the priest used the same kind of key, it explains him disappearing. All we saw was ice while he went through the doorway.
But…why did the key turn for Royo? I tried it every which way.
“After you,” Aeri says to me. Royo looks right at me and arches an eyebrow.
Neither wants to be first through a door in the middle of a lake, and I can’t say I blame them.
I pause and consider whether Aeri is setting us up again. She knew where to meet us and figured out how to locate the door and use the key, and that all seems just as coincidental as finding the key in the first place. But we did tell her we would be at the lake. And she seemed shocked that the key worked.
No, she’s just a very good gem thief.
At least, I hope.
I go down the stairs first, with Euyn behind my shoulder with his bow. Killing the zaybears united us again, the way violence always seems to. His beliefs are, at times, appalling, but they are also evolving. Or that’s what I want to believe.
The girls follow, and then Royo is last. He closes the door behind us with a loud thud.
What the fuck.
All four of us stop and stare at him. Then it occurs to me that it is light enough inside to see one another, somehow.
Well, now that we completely lack the element of surprise, I draw my sword and take the marble staircase down. The stairs are slippery, but it is almost like the white stone is lit from within. The staircase continues for a great distance, slightly curving. I can’t see the end, and I dislike that. It feels like an obvious trap, and hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I’m surprised when we make it to the bottom of the stairs without being attacked. When we come out, we’re inside the glass dome of the Temple of Knowledge. Which means we are in a courtyard underwater.
It’s…incredible.
I never believed the myths about the gods creating structures on earth, because why would deities worry about architecture, but as I look around, this place changes my mind. While I’m certain men built the King’s Arena, I can’t see how people made this. I touch the glass of the side of the dome, wondering how it holds. There is dark water all around us, and glowing fish swim by, but we are dry. In front of us stands an astonishing white marble temple. Torches blaze, illuminating it from within. Small trees grow in the courtyard, lampposts light the space, and none of this should be possible.
“How?” Aeri whispers. She delights at the fish going by, and Royo nearly smiles at her joy.
Even Sora, who isn’t herself, looks around, violet eyes filled with wonder.
The second I saw her face, I knew Seok must have sold her sister—or worse. I regret not telling her that the southern count was in Khitan. I should have warned her, but I didn’t think he’d be at the banquet. Zeolin had said it was only a rumor. Still, guilt gnaws at me for allowing her to be blindsided.
Thoughts of Zeolin bring me back to reality. He was the one with a key to this temple, and he shouldn’t have had it. It was too convenient that I found it. I snap out of it.
“Stay together,” I whisper.
I shake off my awe and observe. I don’t trust how easy it was to get inside the temple. Euyn would say the gods are on our side, but we’ve been nearly eaten a few times too many for that to be true.
We approach the temple carefully. Euyn picks up on my skepticism and scans with his bow ready. Royo has his axe on his shoulder.
All of the Temples of Knowledge have elements of the four original realms—the white marble from Wei, the gilded domes of Khitan, the fountains of Yusan, and the wooden doors of Gaya. Gaya used to be home to the tallest black wood trees in the world. At the end of the Festival of Blood, Joon decimated the ancient forest.
But these doors are older than the massacre. The black wood reaches thirty feet high and is elaborately carved, depicting the mythical tree of knowledge.
As we approach, I pull the brass handle, and we step inside. But as soon as I open the door, I realize something is terribly wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sora
