There’s a jolt as the stone settles. A thrill that arcs through my body.
The pain fades.
“Better?”
I massage my left arm. As surprised as I am relieved. “Yes.”
“Then listen carefully.”
The short remainder of our ascent through the void is filled with a combination of hurried explanations of what to expect outside, and simple directives. The air will hurt to breathe, but that’s normal and I’ll adapt. There will be a descent via some sort of platform from the entrance and he hopes, wryly, that I do not have a problem with heights. It’s dawn or not long past, and it will be my job to watch the skies and let him know if I see any sign of movement. Anything at all.
He says that last part three times, and even his evident good mood fades to seriousness in the emphasis.
Caeror pauses for long periods between each instruction, clearly thinking. A half smile locked on his face. It’s his ebullience, as much as anything else, that reassures me. Allows me the composure to suppress question after burning question, and choose to believe that Ulciscor’s brother knows what he’s doing.
“Almost there,” says Caeror suddenly, glancing up.
On cue, the surrounding void is broken by a sheer wall sliding down into the balustrade’s bloody glow; the platform slows, coming to a stop adjoining the narrow opening that I know leads out. I let Caeror take the lead.
“Scintres Exunus.” Caeror calls the words ahead. A deep grinding answers, and dawn floods the stairs in front of us. The light reveals smooth walls to my left and right. No eyeless corpses lining the way.
Caeror notes my surprise. Stops. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.” His gaze is a silent interrogation. “There were dead bodies here.”
“Obsidian blades in them?” His expression twists at my confused affirmation. “Another adaption.” His gaze flicks to my bloodied left arm, but he seems to discard the idea as soon as he has it. “Well, we were always going to need a little luck. Nothing we can do now except get the hells out of here ourselves. Come on.”
I follow him. The air has been growing gradually thicker, but about halfway up the stairs it hits me. Dense and cloying, suddenly sharp as it sticks to my lungs. I cough, then briefly panic as I struggle to inhale. My throat burns and closes up.
“The sweet scent of Obiteum.” Sympathy in Caeror’s blithe observation.
I lean with hands balled into fists against the nearest wall. Head down. Teeth clenched. It’s like the insides of my chest are being cauterised.
“Alright.” I eventually rasp it, forcing myself to straighten. I don’t know how long it’s been, but the pain has abated. Not disappeared—every breath is still an act of coarse internal violence—but bearable.
Caeror eyes me. “Your head’s clear?” When I nod, he sweeps a curl of black hair from his eyes and starts up the remaining stairs. Energetic and determined. “Then onward.”
We reach the top, and I see the entrance ahead opening out into the dawn. I slow. Trying to process that empty triangle of morning sky with no end. My discomfort, briefly forgotten.
The verdant hillside from which I entered the dome is gone, replaced by …nothing. Air. We must be a thousand feet up; as I edge toward the entrance, the view reveals miles upon miles of devastated dirt and stone far below. The forests and rivers are gone. Not a hint of green anywhere.
I fight a wave of vertigo. Of terror. Of denial.
Caeror’s claim, for the first time, is real to me.
“Rotting gods.” I whisper it disbelievingly into the expanse. “Rottinggods.”
“Something like that,” agrees Caeror from behind me.
My gaze drifts to the distant ocean. This is still the carcass of Solivagus, I gradually understand, but the white monoliths of the Seawall are all that remain of the familiar. Between them and the beach, water simply ripples and swells, but beyond them … beyond arewaves. Dark, lumbering mountains of water. I watch as the closest one hits the line of the Seawall. As it passes the columns it abruptly shrinks, draining away to match the gentle undulation nearer the shore. Where it strikes the stone pillars, though, there are violent explosions of thick, misting spray. It barely has time to settle before the next one hits.
For those waves to be visible at this distance … I can barely guess at their height. A hundred feet? More?
I tear my eyes away. Inch closer again to the entrance’s edge, secure a handhold and tentatively peer out. Up and down. Left and right. In every direction, the red glass walls curve out of sight almost immediately. I hold there a moment longer in a buffeting wind, searching the dizzyingly distant, barren ground.
“My guess is that they tried to destroy it.” Caeror gives me a sympathetic smile, pulling something from his pocket as I slink back to safety. A sliver of what looks like obsidian, triangular and with several needle-thin spikes jutting from it. About the size of a coin.
“They?” I watch curiously. Just as Caeror said it would, my breathing is coming easier now.
