Chapter Nine

"What do you mean?" Ero asked.

"There's a map right here that shows where everything was when this all happened." He pointed at a large area outlined toward the upper corner of the map. "What if the kingdom is still there and the Light Ones are still stuck there, just like they have been since the Covra locked them?"

Silence fell in the room as the three men pondered what Pyra had just said. It was almost unfathomable that what that journal said could be true. After what they had all seen Loralia achieve with her mirrors, they were far more willing to accept that there were things that existed right on their own planet that they didn't understand, and species that could accomplish truly astounding things. The idea that one of these creatures could literally stop time for an entire other species, and that that frozen kingdom could still be persisting in its fully locked state just as it had been for years was too much for any of them to wrap their minds around.

"Pyra?"

The voice of another of the warriors made them all turn to the door to the office. Lynx stood there, leaning into the room with the glow from the light in his hand directed at the floor.

"What is it, Lynx?" Pyra asked.

There really isn't much down here. A bunch of cells. A couple of old chains."

"Tell the men to find a way to get back up out of the trapdoor and gather up outside. Our little adventure here is taking a detour."

"Where are we going?"

"Back in time, it looks like."

Twenty minutes later the men had managed to find a nearly rusted-out metal ladder that looked like it was once attached to the bottom of the trapdoor so it could be used to climb in and out of the dungeon and had gathered right outside in the soft rain. Though the fact that the Klimnu had not actually built the prison originally explained why the structure was built as it was, the existence of the ladder seemed to make the dungeon make more sense.

Pyra gave them a brief overview of what they had found out in the office in the dungeon and told them that they were going to follow that map and see what they could find in the place that marked where the kingdom of the Light Ones at least once stood. Lynx watched him push the stack of papers and books he had carried out of the dungeon into the bag that he had returned to his hip and headed out toward the furthest boundary of the compound, past the wastelands and toward the complete unknown.

The rain intensified as they walked, starting to beat down on them in stinging streams that hurt as they bit into Lynx's exposed skin. It was that fearsome type of rain that made you want to stay inside, drink something hot, and wait until it was over. The men didn't have that option, now. They had committed themselves to this mission, and now it seemed to be taking on even more meaning that it had when they had first started. When he first agreed to go along with them to explore Uoria, Lynx never would have imagined that they would be gone from their homes for only a few hours and already have learned of two species that they didn't know existed up until that point, but also a whole history of the planet and their own compound that none of them had known.

Though he hated himself for thinking it, and wouldn't ever have admitted it in those first few hours, Lynx was starting to change his perception of Creia. Like the other warriors, he had been raised believing that this man was the most powerful and wise of all of the Denynso. Part of a bloodline known for their extraordinary longevity, he had ruled for many decades and had faced many of the earliest battles and conflicts in the ranks of the warriors. It had been Creia who had shown the strength and courage to banish the Klimnu because of their greedy, vicious ways rather than letting them intimidate him into helping them. With all of this history and knowledge, however, he somehow hadn't known about the mirrored realm that existed just beneath the compound he had called home his entire life, or about the prison in the wastelands.

At least, he told them that he didn't know. The longer that they walked, the more footsteps that they put between the area of the compound that they knew and themselves, the more Lynx wondered how honest Creia had really been with them. Was it possible that he had known about the prison and the apparently brutal, drawn-out conflict that had existed there so long ago? Had he been completely honest with them when he told them that their kind had not made contact with others outside of the battles waged on the soil of their own compound?

Lynx felt painfully guilty for even entertaining those thoughts for a second. As a Denynso warrior, it was his responsibility and birthright to honor, respect, and obey Creia without question. He was meant to follow him and do as he ordered no matter what. The thought of questioning him for even a second would be something that the other warriors, or the king himself, would never have tolerated.

The young warrior was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't notice the rest of the warriors had stopped and he ran directly into Gyyx's back. The larger, older warriors turned and glared at him, but turned back to face ahead of him without saying anything. Lynx stepped around to stand beside Gyyx and looked to where Pyra was standing several feet in front of the rest of them. A tall wall of weathered, ancient rocks stood just in front of him. It was the far boundary of the Denynso compound, laid by the very hands of the first of the clan. They had built in there to protect all who lived within it, intending, as the warriors had all been taught from the time that they were little children, that none would ever come inside the boundary to take the compound from them, no species not welcomed by the Denynso would come within the space without quick and brutal retribution, and that none of their kind would ever step beyond it.

They were prepared now to break free of those restraints; to be the first to go past the boundary and take back the freedom of existence on the entirety of the planet of Uoria.