A mortal who believes in a different god.
A spy who betrayed his tribe.
Allies…or enemies?
Part Two: Allies & Enemies
Ivo, Jaeger, Jadeth, and Emaranthe must locate a lost city. To find it they need a map held by their enemy. When they are joined by a spy seeking redemption, and a mortal seeking his destiny, the quest becomes one of life and death, love and loss, deceit and hope. Will they find the map in time? Or will they discover enemies among allies?
Rocks and debris plinked against the iron-armored tower. Panting, they struggled to breath and swallow with dust coated tongues and lungs.
“Well, I never thought I’d be glad to see the inside of this place,” Jaeger grumbled. He stumbled to his feet and dusted his armor off. A fine layer of brown covered all of them.
“At least we have shelter,” Ivo said. He tugged Emaranthe's thick strands of hair from around his neck. “It could have been worse.” He eased her to the cold floor and stumbled to the broken door, his gait suspiciously uncoordinated with her gaze following him. He lifted the large door and fitted back into place as if it were made of nothing.
“How are we going to get to the far south without horses?” Emaranthe whispered from beneath her hair. With a practiced flicked of her head, it smoothed into a heavy fall down her back. “They will not have survived this before the end.”
“We will manage,” Jadeth sighed. She sank back against the wall and studied the room. It was wide, circular, windowless, and empty but for a single staircase spiraling along the wall upward through a gap to another floor. The metal shuddered and a small blast of sand burst through the small gap between the door and the frame. “But first we need to survive.”
“Emaranthe?” Ivo gestured to the battered door. “Can you lock it for us?”
A fireball sailed over his shoulder and burst against the remaining hinge. Heat waves bent the air and the metal flared red-hot. The iron melted, holding the abused door shut.
“Let’s see what’s here.” Jaeger eyed the stairway made entirely of beast bones. He wondered just what creature had unwillingly donated them. “I’ll go up first.”
“Be cautious,” Ivo warned. He pulled Emaranthe to her feet, then but dropped her hand as if it had burned him. “Come on.”
With Jaeger in the lead and Emaranthe’s tiny fire lamp hovering above her palm, they crept up the narrow staircase. The bone steps, carved into rough planks, creaked beneath their feet. Their shadows spiraled up the wall beside them, their shapes looming far larger than life.
The entrance to the floor above was a narrow hole. Jaeger hesitated beneath it, straining to listen over the wind scouring sand across metal. Finally, he lunged through the opening and gained the floor above. The others followed on his heels, wary and watchful in the pitch-black room.
The shivering lamplight didn’t reach the edges of the circular room, leaving the walls bathed in darkness. The metal moaned, scraped, and creaked under the strain of the storm outside.
Emaranthe lifted a trembling arm higher. The puddle of light skated up one curved metal wall. A mass at its base, dark and shrouded, stirred.
A voice, gravelly and deep, set nerves on edge and weapons at hand.
“You found me.”
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