Bran snorted as if he agreed.
Despite the heat, I kept my cloak close, the thick humidity clinging like a second skin. Every surface here beaded with moisture, moss that glistened and curled away from vent cracks, and air that seemed to shimmer. It should have been winter. Just days ago, we were trudging through frost and collecting snowflower petals.
But here, the cold had fled.
We kept moving, winding through a narrow ridge carved by wind and time and something older. The wind had long gone quiet. The only sounds were the hiss of steam and the dull echo of our boots against wet stone.
But it didn’t feel like we were alone.
Erindor walked to the front, his sword still sheathed, but his shoulders tense,
I could almost feel it too, like the cliffs themselves were leaning in closer to hear us breathe.
“We’re almost there,” he said finally, voice low. “A crevice opens to the left, ahead. I passed it once during a patrol. We can pass through there.”
“Crevices,” Alaric grumbled. “Love a good ominous crack in the mountain. Nothing ever jumps out of those.”
We rounded a bend where the ridge dipped sharply, and the stone ahead darkened, not from shade, but from soot. Veins of scorched rock crossed the path, and steam rose steadily from a crack in the mountainside.
“There.” Erindor pointed.
The crack was too symmetrical to be natural, half-veiled by hanging moss and the shimmer of heat. Alaric stepped forward first, ducking through it. Jasira followed with Bran on her heels.
As I passed beneath the moss curtain, the shift in air hit me like a pulse.
It was warmer inside, yet hollow.
The narrow passage gave way to a cavernous corridor, shaped more by hands than by nature. The walls were smooth, almost polished, and carved in sweeping flame-like spirals that curled around symbols I didn’t recognize. Some glowed faintly beneath a crust of soot. Someone clawed or broke others a long time ago.
I reached out, brushing my fingers across one spiral.
“The design…” I whispered. “It’s Vireyan. One of the oldest fire-script dialects. The flame spirals were used to mark sacred places—shrines, sanctuaries, even temples.”
Jasira stepped beside me. “You can read this?”
“Not fluently. But I’ve seen diagrams. These symbols”—I pointed to a trio carved near the base—“they represent sacrifice, sovereignty, and rebirth. The cycle of fire, according to her oldest sects.”
Erindor’s gaze flicked toward the symbols. “You said ‘sects.’ As in more than one.”
I nodded. “There were many. Some peace. Some not.”
We continued down the corridor.
The light changed again.
Ahead, the narrow hallway opened into a cavern of obsidian and ash. A statue stood at its heart, regal, towering, and cracked down the center. Her arms were outstretched. Her face scorched, and someone gouged the stone where her eyes should have been.
She was both magnificent and terrifying.
“Vireya,” I whispered, as though saying her name louder might wake something better left sleeping.
The space felt charged, not like magic in motion, but like a storm gathering in the bones of the world. Heat shimmered from vents beneath the statue’s pedestal, and the floor surrounding her bore the darkened outlines of runes, ritual burn marks etched in soot.
But what caught me most was what lay at her feet.
A small arrangement of dried flowers. Brittle, but carefully placed. Thistle and ashbloom. Star-grass and a single stem of flamebell, its crimson petals gracefully curved like a prayer. They didn’t look ancient. And they hadn’t been there long.
Someone had walked into this place and brought her a gift.
