For a place no longer regularly seen by the public eye, its interior is surprisingly immaculate. The stone floors have been swept clean. Oil lamps line the entryway, neatly trimmed and burning low, and the carved reliefs along the hall before us look as though someone has gone to great lengths to keep every nook and cranny free of dust.
We follow this warmly-lit corridor, trailing our fingers along the decorated walls, and soon come to a large room with a glass ceiling that looks as though it’s meant to open—though something tells me it’s been some time since this mechanism was utilized.
A great basin stands in the middle of this room, balanced upon a marble pedestal taller than me.
The room is cold and dark and smells like dry earth. As expected, nothing burns within the center basin. An odd feeling overtakes me as I stare at it, a heaviness that becomes almost suffocating as I step closer and notice asmall red door with three golden bands set into the marble pedestal.
Without thinking, I move toward this door, Briar following close behind.
As my hand brushes the door, the room sways, and that odd heaviness clamps down with such force it nearly brings me to my knees.
“I'm afraid that area is inaccessible,” comes a soft, measured voice from the shadows near the far wall. “Even to His Majesty's Most Favored One.”
Chapter Thirty-One
We spin around to find ourselves facing a petite woman in faded red robes. Her hands are clasped together as if in prayer, and several of her fingers are wrapped in bandages.
“Inaccessible?” Briar repeats.
The woman’s expression is smooth, unreadable as she steps closer, keeping her hands pressed together. “Everyone who has tried to open that sealed door over the past decades has died a horrific death.” She tilts her head, giving us a little smile that borders on unsettling. “But I would be honored to give you a tour of the rest of this temple, if you'd like?” She finally pulls her hands apart, waving for us to follow her. Even her mundane movements are oddly graceful, as if they’re part of a dance she’s been eager to perform for someone. “Come along, won't you?”
Briar slowly moves to follow her, but my gaze is already drifting back to that sealed red door; I can't seem to look away from it for very long.
“What are you doing?” Briar whispers, grabbing thesleeve of my cloak as I start to step toward the door again. “Did you not hear what she said abouthorrific death?”
I let her pull me away. But the heaviness remains. My heart feels like it’s sinking underneath the weight, making it difficult to focus on anything else.
Distractedly, I follow Briar and the woman through the temple's main hall. The offer of a proper tour is genuine, it turns out; the woman directs us toward specific carved reliefs and faded tapestries, explaining them with the quiet authority of someone who has given this tour many times before.
“I am Lady Sylvane, by the way,” she tells us, once we’ve circled back into the main room. “One of the few remaining Acolytes of the Flame.” She touches a small medallion at her throat—one featuring a torch, rendered in worn bronze. “There were dozens of us, once upon a time, when our fire still burned.”
“How long ago was that?” Briar asks, studying the woman's face, which seems like an odd combination of weathered and youthful.
She lifts her gaze to the glass ceiling. “Nearly a century and a half, now.”
“Wait…” I stop walking, finally focusing my full attention on her. “How old are you, then?”
She gives me a small, enigmatic smile. “That isn't a very polite question.”
I press on, nonetheless. “Did you actuallytendthat last flame?”
“Divine dragon fire has a way of enabling endurance,” she says with a little shrug. “Of melting away the strain of the years as easily as it melts iron.” There's loneliness in hervoice, I think. A longing in the way her gaze drifts toward that empty altar at the center of the room.
I don't know what kind of magic has kept her alive for so long, but I wonder if she would have agreed to it if she'd known she wouldn't always have a flame to tend. Or if she even trulyagreedin the first place. Enslaving people to keep this flame burning sounds like exactly the kind of thing Mouren’s rulers would have done during the height of their brutal conquests.
Lady Sylvane’s dark eyes are still shining with emotion as she grips the medallion she wears, and Briar and I exchange a look, knowing we can likely use her nostalgic feelings to get her to spill stories—and potentially useful information.
“Can you tell me more about that flame you once tended?” I ask.
Predictably, she lights up at the chance.
“It was the most extraordinary thing in this world,” she says, stepping closer to the empty basin. “A fire that couldn’t be imitated by anything humans made. It didn't consume or destroy. It only illuminated. Everything it touched seemed more alive, more beautiful.”
“What made it go out?”
“As the four kingdoms fell into conflict—wars, failed bonds, increasingly messy dragon relations—the Flame began to flicker. Little disturbances at first. Then came more powerful winds that threatened to extinguish it entirely; moments where we held our breath to see if the embers would properly catch again. Our own illustrious rulers, of course, did what they could to keep it burning, and to give our kingdom the light and power to sustain itself. But eventually…” She hangs her head.
“Did what they could?” I repeat. “What does that mean?”
