“No idea.” He gently squeezes my arm. “But I don’t think we should worry. We’ll just have to make sure we’re extra careful.”
I nod and together we pack up our things. There are another two screeching sounds before we all exit the cave. The most unsettling part is that we seem to be heading in the direction the shrieks are coming from, but it’s hard to tell how far, or near, the offending creature is located.
Nico, who impresses me as he keeps the same cheerful spirit throughout the journey, continuously checks the map making sure we are always going in the right direction.
He’s in the middle of telling me a story about his first expedition with Iann when he stops walking. His fingers trace over the map and then at invisible lines in the air.
“We can’t go that way.” He speaks loud enough for Iann and Deean, who lead us, to hear.
Deean immediately drops his bag, breathing heavily at the weight that’s been strapped to his back. “Then which way are we supposed to go?”
Nico does some more searching on the map and turns to his right, facing a stone wall. Thriving green vines cover most of it and I don’t want to think of what spiders hide within.
“Do you have a way of getting through stone?” Sky sarcastically throws out, before taking the opportunity to sit on a boulder and downing a swig of water.
I see Iann pick up a hefty size rock off the ground and before I can ask what he’s doing he throws it into the air. It lands on the continued path, but it doesn’t stay there. Chunks of mud fly up as if it’s boiling and slowly pulls the rock under until it disappears, and then the terrain returns to normal, like nothing has disturbed the ground.
Deean jumps closer to the rest of us, feeling a little too close to the muddy death trap.
“The stone wall it is,” Sky concludes.
“What now?” I look over Nico’s shoulder to see what little clues Fraya left. “That patterned one—maybe it’s a cipher or something.”
Suddenly, the ground rumbles, urging us to move faster.
Iann cuts away at the spider-infested ivy. No actual spiders come crawling out, but I’m still convinced they’re in there.
Once the vines come down, tile-like rocks with symbols embedded in each are scattered across the wall.
“What language is that?” Iann takes a step back examining it more in depth.
“Kind of similar to Ethnay. But then again, it’s not,” Chana suggests, as she tilts her head to the side.
Benny chuckles, although no one has told a joke. He moves close and glides a hand over a few stones. “It’s Herolvic. An old dead language many claim was invented by the divinities.”
Great. Not only foreign to us but a dead one as well.
“What are you talking about?” Sky aims his head to the grouping of symbols further at the top. “It’s Haymelian. It reads, ‘What is my true name?’”
I spin to Sky prepared to tell him it says nothing of the sort but my eyes get caught on Vera’s necklace. It shines with a red urgency and causes me to look down at the bracelet, which glows the same color.
“Is she watching us?” I back into Chana as fear snakes up my spine.
Sky grabs my wrist, and I see Iann lurch forward but stills before he realizes Sky is only examining it. His eyes drift back and forth from the bracelet to the wall. “The wall is enchanted.” Sky’s words come out in amazement, and it doesn’t take me long to realize why.
The necklace and bracelet pick up on any enchantments around us. They were also created by Sky who might be more than an ordinary apothecary.
“What does this say?” Nico holds up the map to Sky.
“Ocean Ruler.” Sky’s interpretation carries no hesitations. Without warning he begins to push in the stones of the wall matching that of what’s on the paper. With the final stone he steps away, and the ground rumbles and the wall shakes as a chunk sinks back in itself.
Iann is the first to approach the gap in the wall. Pushing the area that has become disconnected from the rest of the wall. Once pushed to its limit, he starts sliding it over as Deean comes to help; before us is a door of darkness, continuing us on the path.
Iann grabs a few fallen sticks and takes one of the blankets we have, wrapping it around the stick. Deean searches for the nille stones and then sets fire to the blanket.
“This way.” Iann bobs a head towards the entrance and slips into the darkness.
I follow first and Nico stays close behind us, clinging to the map.
