“Why does it always have to be ruins?” Jasper grumbled, shaking the dust off his hair-feathers. Clouds of it cascaded from the ceiling, jolted free by the presence of living things disturbing the stale air. “Why can’t we ever look for something at, like, an amusement park?”
His question went unanswered as Dorian helped Echo over a precarious pile of fallen stones. They had been climbing through the ruin for what felt like hours but had probably only been forty-five minutes. Echo’s legs were significantly shorter than Dorian’s and Jasper’s, and her calves were beginning to ache with ferocity.
Echo paused, hefting her backpack higher on her shoulders. It contained everything she thought she might possibly need: the silver bowl, the glass vial half full of Caius’s blood, her dagger, water, a flashlight, snacks. Echo didn’t know what Tanith had been feeding Caius this whole time, but she was willing to bet it was terrible.
The temple was majestic in its own way, but it was very much ruined, very much forgotten. Broken statues lay in fragments at their feet; aggressive vines wound their way through holes in the cracked paving stones; the air was thick with the pungent scents of moss and decay. Every now and then, Echo heard a distant noise that was either the sound of an animal in distress or wind cutting through the rubble at just the right frequency to sound like a wailing ghost. She sincerely hoped it was the latter.
“What was this place?” she asked. Once Dorian had identified the location where Caius was being held, Echo had gone into overdrive, preparing for their departure and steeling herself for whatever they might find. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask which ancient Drakharin god the temple had been dedicated to or what rituals had been performed there.
Dorian broke his tense silence to answer her question. “There was a time when every god in our pantheon had a specific place of worship.”
“Before humans spread across practically every available inch of this planet like a plague?” Jasper interjected. “No offense,” he added for Echo’s sake.
“None taken.” Not only did her humanity feel like a thing of the past, but when you’re right, you’re right.
“Yes, quite,” Dorian said. He peered up at one of the statues that was still mostly standing, save for a left arm that had been knocked off at some point over the centuries. The stone figure was relatively humanoid. Two arms (in theory), two legs, one head. But then there were the wings. A set of them jutted forth from the statue’s shoulder blades, creating a wingspan of at least twenty feet. They reminded Echo a bit of bat wings.
“Like the Avicen,” Dorian continued, “our gods don’t have names. We referred to them by their attributes.” He laid a reverent hand on one of the outspread wings. “This temple was built for the god of battle.” He inclined his head to the statues flanking the winged figure. “Those were probably minor gods. They embodied different aspects of the god – bloodlust, justice, mercy. Their places among the pantheon have largely been lost to time.” With a look back at the god of battle, he said, “We only remember the major gods now. So much has been lost.”
Jasper snorted as he sidled up next to Dorian. “God of battle. Really sneaky hiding place you picked here, Tanith.”
Dorian cracked a short-lived grin. “She always was dramatic like that.”
“Bet she’s one of those bad guys who likes to monologue their big evil plan,” Jasper said.
An involuntary and wholly inappropriate giggle burst from Echo’s lips. “Yeah, she is.”
The laughter died as abruptly as it had begun, because it was impossible to remember the new Dragon Prince’s penchant for theatrical verbosity without remembering the death and destruction that came in its wake. Tanith did talk a big game, and her follow-up had a body count. Echo trudged forward, determined to push the memory of smoke and ash and screams from her mind. She picked up her pace, relishing the burn of her muscles as her legs plaintively begged her to slow down.
Jasper kept up a steady stream of chatter. Silence, particularly when it was heavy with sadness, made him uneasy, though Echo had no doubt the litany of questions and voiced thoughts was as much for Dorian’s sake as his own. If Dorian was focused on replying to Jasper’s questions, then he couldn’t use the entirety of his brainpower to agonize over what condition Caius would be in if – when – they found him. Especially if that condition was anything other than “alive and well.”
“Did the Drakharin perform any nefarious rituals here?” Jasper asked. “You know, sacrificing cute, fluffy animals or dancing naked under the light of the full moon?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Magic orgies? That sort of thing? If you have any sordid tales of ancient Drakharin debauchery, I am all ears.”
“Sacrifice has always been a cornerstone of the way we worship,” said Dorian, “though not all the gods desired one. You jest, but ritual intimacy was not uncommon, especially during the harvest —”
“Stop.” Echo held up a hand, motioning for the others to halt.
“But he was just about to tell us about the orgies,” Jasper said, exasperated. “What could be more important than that?”
Wordlessly, Echo pointed to the statue in front of them. It was shorter than the winged figure – a minor deity. A red smear painted the face of whatever forgotten god it had represented. Against the bleached marble of stone flesh, the brownish-red stain stood out in lurid contrast. The blood flaked away at Echo’s touch. It was old, but not very. Old enough to dry, but recent enough to have withstood erasure by the elements and the passage of time. Five smaller smudges orbited the bulk of the blood.
“A handprint,” Echo said. “And I don’t think it’s been here very long.”
Dorian drew closer, his hand reaching for the sword at his hip. He didn’t draw it, but he let his palm rest on the pommel, ready for anything. Leaning forward, he inspected the bloodstain, scrunching his brow in thought.
“The shape is unclear, but the size is right,” he said.
“Do you think Caius left this?” Hope and fear surged in Echo’s heart. If Caius had smeared his blood across the statue’s face, then hopefully they were not far from where he was. But it also meant that he had been bleeding profusely enough to have left a mark of that size.
Dorian nodded, his jaw clenching visibly. “I think so. I hope so.” He pressed a finger to the center of the stain. Flecks of blood broke away from the marble, fluttering to the ground like paper ashes. “It’s been here a week or so, I would wager.”
“So we’re on the right track,” Jasper said. “Though I can’t say I’m overly pleased to be following a trail of blood. Couldn’t he have left bread crumbs like a normal kidnap victim?”
“Do you have to turn everything into a joke?” Dorian snapped.
Jasper didn’t flinch, though Echo noticed the tightening of his eyes. His expression shuttered, like a window being slammed shut. She had seen him do that countless times. He clammed up when he slipped his mask on. When he was afraid his face would betray what he was truly feeling.
“Just trying to keep the mood light,” said Jasper. “Between you and Echo, I’m getting a bit sick of the doom and gloom.”
With a displeased grunt, Dorian turned away, toward the passage that the trail of blood seemed to indicate. Jasper caught his arm, his mask slipping just enough for Echo to see the way his eyes softened. Dorian paused but didn’t turn around.
“He’s going to be fine,” Jasper said to Dorian’s back. “We’re going to drag him out of here and patch him up, and then you can mother-hen over him to your heart’s content.”
“I hope you’re right,” Echo said. She stepped around the two of them, taking the lead again. Dorian would likely take point at any sign of danger, but the sight of Caius’s blood had made her own run cold, and putting one foot in front of the other quelled the unease she felt, if only slightly. They needed to find him. Now. Before there was nothing left of him to find.
They walked in tense silence through the dilapidated temple. Broken statues littered their path, strewn about like victims of a long-ago battle. Chunks of masonry had fallen from the walls, parts of a frieze depicting Drakharin gods and goddesses at war. Echo tried to piece together the story, but there were too many missing fragments for it to make much sense. A great tangle of roots had worked its way through the cracks in the paving stones as nature fought to reclaim the earth upon which the temple sat.
Echo’s curiosity warred with her inclination to leave Dorian alone. She wanted, desperately, to ask him if he was familiar with the tale carved into the marble walls, but there was a purpose in his stride and a tension in the set of his shoulders that made her think he had no desire to satisfy her curiosity.
Jasper had no such reticence.
“I wonder what it all means,” he said, stepping carefully over a particularly large segment of the shattered frieze.
To Echo’s surprise, Dorian answered Jasper’s non-question. “It’s the same nonsense for which all monuments are built: we fought, we bled, we died, and all in the name of glory. And so we perpetuate the legend that all that fighting and bleeding and dying is worth something so that future generations can go on repeating the sins of the past while expecting it to result in anything besides more fighting and bleeding and dying.”
It was by far the most poetic thing Echo had ever heard him say.
It wasn’t difficult to imagine how beautiful the temple must have once been. High above their heads soared a barrel vault ceiling, the mortar tiles of which were flecked with bits of peeling paint. The support columns – which were mercifully in far better condition than the statues – were adorned with a curling form of Drakhar script that wound around each column like decorative ribbon. The writing bore some similarity to the Drakhar runes Echo had seen, but it seemed older. Ancient. Certain figures reminded her of the soft, curving lines of Avicet script. The Avicen and Drakharin had a shared past, though both sides behaved as though they would like nothing less than to remember it. But the words engraved in the marble columns betrayed the lie. Language knew. Language remembered.
Echo craned her neck to get a better look at the carvings high up on the walls. Her foot snagged on a root and, with a muffled curse, she went down, hands braced to break her fall. When she looked up, she found herself staring into the eyes of a dragon.
She may have screamed. She would never, ever admit to doing so.
“It’s just a statue,” Jasper said, resting his foot on the thing’s severed head. He exhibited as much respect for the gods of the Drakharin as he did for the Avicen pantheon, which was none. Echo wanted to punch the smirk off his face. “Scaredy-cat.”
The dragon’s eyes were unseeing alabaster pools, though the delicate lines of its face had been hewn with exceptional realism. An open maw, lined with two rows of sharp teeth, snarled with such eternal ferocity that Echo thought she might be able to feel its sour breath upon her face if she stared at it long enough.
Jasper offered her a hand to help her stand, but that damnable smirk was still plastered on his face.
“I may be a scaredy-cat but at least I’m not —”
“Hush,” said Dorian. He held one hand up in the universal gesture of “shut up.” He cocked his head to the side, listening.
Echo hushed, silently grateful for his intervention, because she was sorely lacking in clever comebacks. She’d probably come up with one later. L’esprit de l’escalier, as the French liked to say.
“What is it?” Echo asked. She brushed her dirty hands against her jeans, but even that noise felt too loud in the silence. “What did you hear?”
“Nothing,” said Dorian. “And that’s the problem.”
He was right, Echo realized. If Caius was here, then there should have been guards. Or at the very least some signs of life. But the ruins were undisturbed, as if no one had set foot in this forgotten place for years and years.
From everything Caius had said, Echo knew his sister to be a master strategist. She could be bold to the point where weaker men would have called it foolishness, but there was always a reason behind her actions, some clever tactic that at times only she could see. It was difficult to reconcile the idea of that person with someone who would go through the trouble of kidnapping a very powerful foe, only to abandon him in a run-down temple without the slightest security.
“Something’s up,” Echo said.
To that, Dorian nodded. He unsheathed his sword. “Be on your guard.”
Without another word, he resumed their trek through the corridor, sidestepping fallen idols. Echo and Jasper followed, giving him a wide berth so that if he swung his sword, they’d be well out of his way. Jasper had a long, wicked-looking knife strapped to his back, and Echo had her magpie dagger tucked into her boot, but she knew drawing it in a fight would be a waste. Stabbing an enemy would be simple enough, but her real weapon was not wrought of steel, it was in her. She focused, feeling the current of magic that flowed through her veins as naturally as her own blood. Her body felt warmer as the magic responded to her. With each passing day, she was feeling more and more attuned to it. Using it still caused her pain, but so long as she inflicted some in turn on the Drakharin who had taken Caius, she could deal with it. A little pain for a lot of power seemed like a fair trade.
The trail of blood led them to an imposing slab of blue stone at the end of the passageway. White veins branched across its surface like a spider’s web. At its center a single Drakhar rune was engraved in the same flowing script as the words they had encountered on the path.
“This doesn’t seem good,” Jasper said. “The last time Echo went through a stone door into a mysterious inner chamber, she stabbed herself in the chest like the drama queen she is.”
“I am not a drama queen,” Echo said absently. She reached out her hand to the rune, but Dorian grabbed her wrist before her fingertips could touch it.
His single eye was trained on the symbol, his brow pinched.
“What does it say?” Echo asked, extracting her hand from his grasp.
“‘Wind,’” Dorian replied. “Or ‘air.’”
Dorian nudged Echo aside as he inspected the door more closely. There was no blood on its surface, but a few drops had spattered the ground. Caius had come through here. Or had been dragged through. An unpleasant thought.
“How do we open it?” Jasper asked. “I can pick just about any lock, but I don’t see one.”
Some doors, Echo knew, didn’t require a key to open. Or at least, not a key in the traditional sense of the word. It was her turn to grab Dorian by the wrist. He frowned, but he let her pull his hand forward.
“Touch it,” she said.
He did.
The moment Dorian’s fingers brushed the carved lines, the rune began to glow a bright white that eclipsed the veins running through the marble. The light flared for an instant and then went out. The slab swung away from Dorian’s touch, revealing a cavernous room and the soft babbling of a distant stream.
“Magic door,” Echo said. “It’s always a magic door. And this being a Drakharin temple, I’m guessing it only responds to someone with Drakharin blood.”
Dorian huffed, as if impressed against his will. He fell back into his stoic silence as he walked through said magic door, single-minded in his quest to rescue the prince to whom he had sworn himself, body and soul.
Jasper followed him, with considerably less aplomb. “Magic doors and trails of blood.” He shot Echo a look over his shoulder. “For once, it might be nice to go on a normal adventure.”