"Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"Borji quipped back.
She shook her head, moving toward the sound.It pulled her past the cages, past the guards' averted eyes, to a wall at the far end of the corridor.Plain stone, like every other wall.But behind it, the whisper grew louder.
Help us.
Please.
Help us.
Murderer.
"There's something here," she said."Behind this wall."
Borji joined her, frowning."It's just a wall.Storage on the other side, maybe."
"No."She pressed her palm to the stone.The whisper became a chorus—voices, so many voices, young and old and terrified."There's a room.Blocked off.I can hear them."
"Hear what?"Borji's frown deepened."Azul, I don't hear anything."
“Knock down this wall.”
Azul looked up to see Ragnar, his arms crossed.He seemed not to care much for her logic or reasoning; he only wished to follow her lead.His orders were firm, making the guards jump.
“Great Khan—” one began.
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
The men scrambled to obey.
The first swing of the hammer echoed through the corridor; stone cracked, and dust billowed.The second swing opened a hole, and the smell that poured through made even the hardened guards stagger back.
Azul stepped forwards, peering through the gap as the men widened it.Beyond the wall was a room.It was small, circular and windowless.Its floor was covered in elaborate chalk markings.Symbols she recognised from Kamsi’s scribbles, from the scrolls she looked through briefly in the library.
A ritual circle.
But it was what lay within the circle that seized her breath.
Bodies.Three of them, arranged in a pattern she couldn't immediately parse.They had been tortured—that much was clear from the wounds and lack of skin.Their faces were frozen in expressions of terror, mouths open in screams that would never be heard.
The chalk around them was dark with old blood.
Borji choked and turned away as the hole became large enough to step through, his hand over his mouth.One of the guards retched, stumbling back.Even Ragnar went still, his mask hiding whatever expression might have crossed his face.
Azul walked into the room.
The chalk crunched beneath her feet.The smell was indescribable, but she quickly found herself ignoring it.
Her eyes traced the lines of chalk, the offerings placed at cardinal points, and the direction of the blood flow.Having stepped deep enough into the room, she turned to look at the back wall they had knocked down, and her stomach dropped.
After the end of the world, the mother rose from the ashes of the old gods.
She turned her head to the side only to see more.It covered everything.Every surface she could see, every inch of stone within reach of the faint phosphorescent glow.Deep scratches carved into rock so old it had forgotten what light felt like.Characters upon characters upon characters, spiralling and layering and moving.Snaking around everything, around her, around her throat.
She who walks between worlds.She who drinks the blood of sacrifice.She who is born from the bowels of existence.
Bile rose in Azul's throat; she felt lightheaded.
