Earth's End

“Has anyone ever gone in?” she asked Daniel. It wasn’t his first tour so she thought he may know.

“In? No.” He shook his head.

Vhalla paused at the tree line, staring into the yawning darkness created by the canopy of the jungle. Even the light of the moon couldn’t penetrate to the forest floor. The last time she had gone into this jungle she had come out with almost nothing.

Clenching her fists, Vhalla took a step forward, deeply grateful for Daniel’s presence.

She began walking around the building, running her hand along the stone. It was a sorcery unlike any she’d ever felt. Most magic Vhalla had ever encountered seemed to move. Firebearers crackled and radiated, Waterrunners ebbed and flowed, Groundbreakers were vibrant and colorful in their sorcery. But, this—this was a pulse rooted to something much deeper than any Channel Vhalla had ever encountered.

Even Daniel had fallen quiet. His eyes were on high alert, and he scanned the treetops and forest floor for any sign of an attack. Vhalla felt the hair on the back of her neck rise, the feeling of eyes becoming so great that she paused to shift into her magical sight and listen on the wind for any breath of enemies.

It was silent.

The forest was so chillingly still that Vhalla turned and peered over her shoulder, desperate to see a sliver of moonlight from the way they had come. The thick brush had already closed in around them, blotting out any view of the Imperial camp beyond. As if the forest was a hungry beast that had swallowed them whole.

There was nowhere to go but forward, so Vhalla pushed on. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but as they rounded the back end of the structure, Vhalla barely contained a sigh of relief and a groan of frustration. All she could see was more of the same. More magically shaped stone defending the building’s contents from everything—even the trees.

She stilled, repeating the only facts that she knew about the axe. Achel slept in a stone tomb. Judging from where Za had been focused, Vhalla was certain that this was the “stone tomb” she had been referring to.

The Gods watch over what is theirs.

She turned her face upward. Vhalla squinted through the edge of the canopy where the trees couldn’t encroach upon the top of the structure. High above was the great eye that peered down upon the whole world: the Gods.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Daniel hissed as she planted her feet against the rock.

“We have to go in through the top,” Vhalla whispered in reply, her feet already by his head.

“Vhalla, if you fall—”

“Falls can’t hurt me, remember?” Anyone else would have likely been dissuaded from tackling such a tall climb. But Vhalla found herself breathing easier with each pull of her arms, with each footing she found that brought her upward. The air was freer up high than in the inky blackness of the jungle floor. Climbing toward the sky was freedom.

Daniel was a cacophony of noise the moment he tried to ascend as well.

“Daniel!” Vhalla tensed, stalling on a narrow ledge. He created enough clanking to alert anyone who was even remotely close to their presence. He was too encumbered by his armor to go further. Vhalla sighed softly, knowing what needed to be said. “You can’t follow me.”

“Vhalla!” he protested with genuine panic.

“You said it yourself: if you fall, it won’t be good.”

“I want to go with you.”

“Don’t make me watch another man I care about fall.” The words escaped before she gave them any thought, just unfiltered truth. Another man I care about, she watched as it sank in on his face. Vhalla’s expression likely mimicking the surprise his hazel eyes carried. Vhalla swallowed. “Go back to the camp side, wait for me there. If I’m not out by the time the sky begins to lighten, get Aldrik.”

“Do not keep me worrying for that long,” he demanded.

“I won’t.” Vhalla watched as Daniel started back for the Imperial side of the ruins.

She turned back to the rock. It was uncomfortable beneath her hands, as though it rejected her every touch. Finding places for her feet gave the sickening feeling that she was putting the soles of her boots on someone’s face. It wasn’t a hard climb, but the disgust the ruins seemed to radiate toward her made it take longer than it should.

When Vhalla crested the apex of the structure, the moon hung right above her. She panted softly from the exertion of the climb, but her eyes focused on the dark spot in the middle of the roof she now stood upon. Vhalla walked over, shuffling her feet toward the hole to peer over the edge.

She gasped sharply. The moonlight flowed through the oculus only to be dashed upon hundreds of points, fracturing it into starlight in a swirling microcosm of raw magic. This was the power that was being kept inside the thick stone wall of pure earth. Vhalla crouched at the ledge, gazing down. The bottom did not seem very far, if she could land easily with all the crystals below.

Inching to the edge, she took a breath and stepped off. The moonlight faded quickly and Vhalla welcomed the air beneath her, easing her fall onto a large crystal. Which she proceeded to slip off of and land awkwardly.

Vhalla rubbed the back of her head where it’d hit against a stone—a less than graceful descent. The domed ceiling above her seemed to glow with magic. But it could be her eyes playing tricks on her. Blinking the haze away, Vhalla pulled herself to her feet.

Every crystal she touched radiated power. The second her feet or hands brushed over the stone it shimmered and sparked to life with a color as ancient as the glacers in the tallest mountains of the South. She felt the magic reaching out to her, twirling around her fingers, inviting her to use it. For all the power the room held there was one thing that drew her attention.