Chapter 6
“Julian?” I murmured, my lips tingling, confused by the sudden withdrawal. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly, his voice unnaturally tight. He cleared his throat, pulling his hands away from my waist and reaching for the linen roll with frantic, jerky motions. “Nothing. I... we must be careful, Sariyah. Passion clouds the mind. The beasts... their telepathy feeds on heightened emotion. If we lose discipline, the wards weaken.”
He wrapped the linen around my ribs with swift, clinical efficiency, his touch suddenly devoid of the heat that had consumed us seconds before. He tied the knot firmly, then reached out and tapped the silver clasp at the base of my neck, checking the lock.
“Keep your heart still,” he instructed, not looking into my eyes as he packed away the salve. “We need you sharp for tomorrow. We are in the belly of the beast now.”
A cold disappointment settled in my chest, leaving a hollow ache where the sweet warmth had been.
“Yes,” I said quietly, pulling my tunic back over my head. “Of course.”
***
We set out before the bioluminescent moss could cycle to its dimmest phase, moving deeper into the caldera’s subterranean heart.
The natural basalt caverns soon gave way to something far more unnerving: architecture.
It was not human stonework. Human masonry was defined by square angles, mortar joints, and chisel marks left by iron hammers. The structures rising around us from the floor of the caldera were colossal, curving colonnades carved directly out of the living volcanic rock—sweeping arches that rose forty cubits into the ceiling like the ribcages of leviathans, polished until the obsidian gleamed like black mirrors.
“The ruins of the Archon outpost?” I asked, resting my hand on the pommel of my broadsword as we passed under a vaulted archway.
Julian snorted softly, his walking staff clicking rhythmically against the stone. “Do not insult our ancestors, Sariyah. This is draconic masonry. Before the war, they nested in the volcanic veins, carving these dens using their own breath to melt the rock into shape. Barbarian lairs masquerading as temples.”
I looked at the walls.
They did not look like barbarian dens to me.
As the light of our torch swept across the polished obsidian, carvings emerged from the darkness. They were sweeping, fluid bas-reliefs, cut into the glass with breathtaking elegance. Unlike the stiff, imperial murals of human kings seated on golden thrones, these carvings depicted movement—immense winged forms soaring in spirals through skies woven with stars and lightning; great serpents curling protectively around mountain peaks; and, in the lower bands, smaller creatures—deer, wolves, even humans—gathered peacefully near pools of molten gold.
I stopped in my tracks.
My torchlight flickered over a massive circular relief at the center of the hall.
It depicted an elder dragon, its head crowned with four majestic sweeping horns, its wings folded broad and wide. Beneath its breast, curled tightly against the great wyrm’s scaled chest, was a single hatchling. The elder dragon was not breathing fire down upon the world; its massive skull was lowered, its stone snout touching the tiny forehead of the child in a gesture of pure, tender devotion.
A sudden, sharp pang echoed through the center of my chest.
It was not pain. It was a grief so vast, so suffocating, that it drove the breath straight out of my lungs.
A lump rose in my throat, thick and burning. Tears sprang to my eyes without warning, blurring the torchlight into streaks of gold. My chest ached with an excruciating, hollow homesickness—a yearning to curl beneath those massive stone wings, to feel the steady, thunderous beat of that ancient heart, to be held and shielded from the cold, sharp world outside.
*Mother...*
The thought whispered through my mind, so clear, so natural, that my lips parted to speak it aloud.
“Sariyah.”
Julian’s voice cut through the reverie like a shard of ice.
I blinked, wiping furiously at my cheeks, only to realize my fingers were wet. I had been crying. Over a slab of carved volcanic rock.
Julian stood three paces away, staring at me. His torch was held high, casting harsh shadows across his face. His knuckles were white on the wood of his staff, his eyes wide with a terrifying, furious panic.
“What are you looking at?” he demanded.
“I... I was looking at the carvings,” I murmured, my voice trembling slightly. “Julian, look at this. The way the stone is cut. It’s... they weren't just mindless predators. Look at how it holds the young one. It looks like—”
“Do not look at it!”
Julian surged forward, dropping his scholarly staff with a loud clatter. He grabbed my shoulders, spinning me around violently so my back was to the relief, his face pale and contorted with rage.
“Have you forgotten everything I taught you?” he hissed, his breath hot against my cheek, his fingers digging into my arm with surprising, bruising strength. “They are deceivers! They built these halls to mock us! To mimic human love, to mimic civilization, so fools like our ancestors would let down their guard while the broods grew strong enough to incinerate our cities!”
“Julian, I only said—”
“You were crying!” he shouted, his voice cracking, bouncing off the vaulted obsidian ceiling in harsh, ugly echoes. “You were weeping for a carving of a monster! A monster that would roast a village of children alive without blinking!”
He was trembling from head to foot, his eyes frantic, darting from my face to the carving behind me, as if he expected the stone dragon to come to life and swallow him whole. His breathing was shallow, ragged, his pupils blown wide in terror.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice dropping to a desperate, shaking rasp. He reached up, grasping the sides of my face with both hands, forcing my head up until I was looking directly into his frantic slate eyes. “Look at me, Sariyah. What did they do to your family?”
The familiar litany rose in my throat, prompted like a catechism taught to a child.
“They burned my village,” I whispered, though when I tried to picture the burning houses, the faces of my parents, my mind was met only with a thick, impenetrable fog of gray ash. “They killed my kin.”
“Yes,” Julian whispered feverishly, nodding, his thumbs digging into my cheekbones. “They burned your village. They left you broken in the dirt. I found you. I gave you food. I taught you to hold a blade. Who gave you your life, Sariyah? Who saved you?”
“You did,” I answered, the words feeling mechanical, heavy, rolling off my tongue like cold iron beads. “You saved me, Julian.”
“I saved you,” he repeated, exhaling a long, shuddering breath, pressing his forehead against mine as if trying to push the thoughts physically back into my skull. “And you will save me. You cannot look at their lies. You cannot let them into your heart. Promise me. Promise me you will not look at the walls again.”
His terror was so raw, so pathetic, that the strange grief in my chest receded, replaced once more by that instinctual, overwhelming urge to protect him from his own fright.
