My shadows ripple across the stone tracing the perfect, angular lines.Gravel scuffs underfoot as the muscles in my legs shake, rebelling against the compulsion driving me closer.
Marks carved into the flat top begin merging, intertwining into a pattern I’m unfamiliar with.
Lines.Curves.Pictures moulding into shapes I now recognise; Pantheon’s Peak, the Lantern Market, the canals, the tunnels leading to the City of Light: Auria.
Of course.It’s a map.
My brows furrow, the skin on my cheeks cracking from where the salty tears left their tracks.
This can’t be right.
In between the grand palace that sits atop my world, is another layer of dead space.But this dead space isn’t empty—it’s filled with more tunnels, more chambers, more crescent marks—some I’ve never seen before.I should know, I’ve wandered through them many a time in my years living here.
My head shakes from the shivers running through me, but my hands are still, tracing the lines, feeling the smooth groove within the stone.
How on earth was this made?
My shadows curl toward me, one tendril moves to my wrist, its shape replicating my hand, tracing its own fingers above my own.Before I even have time to blink, a whip of black lashes against my wrist, sharp as glass, slicing skin.
Hot pain bites at the incision, sending dark blood to drip onto the surface.As if starving for it, the stone drinks the blood soaking through the grooves until it spreads, completely filling the lines in the map.
The chamber stills, caught in a pause before the exhale, as veins of red illuminate the stone, bleeding life into an image awoken from the life of my own.
My hands reach for the map, the glare from my blood sears my vision, sending white hot pain through my skull.I pull away, my palms flattening against my eyes, as I clench them tight in an effort to distinguish the iron rod of fire building behind them.
But as the curtains of my sight remain closed, the darkness gives way to the same red light.Lines begin to take shape, blending into the same pattern etched onto the onyx stone.Every detail, every nuance, imprinted as if I’m staring directly at it.
Left to right, up and down, my gaze travels across the map now infused behind my eyelids.The longer I focus on one area, the larger the image appears; the more detail is shown, as if my mind were a candle flame, illuminating the darkest corners.
Slowly my vision returns as I open my eyes, looking back to the map that has now withered to a dull ember on top of the rock.My shadows stir restlessly at my feet, as stone shifts behind me.
My muscles freeze, but the current within my veins grows warmer the harder my heart pumps.A molten core ready to erupt.
A feverish need to unmask my stalker takes hold, my neck stiffening as I’m drawn toward the noise.A jagged rift in the darkness takes form—the unmistakable outline of a man.
My pulse bolts, a wild animal thundering against the bars of my ribs.
Run.
A tug deep in my spine pulls me toward another opening, diverting me into another dark passageway.Another step into the unknown.
Without hesitation, I sprint towards it.Agony burns through my legs, every fibre of muscle trapped within a corrosive firestorm, as I push harder and faster away from my pursuer.
Sweet, coppery liquid fills the back of my throat, as my lungs are stripped raw, but I refuse to stop, not daring to chance a look back.
A beam of light from the opening ahead points the way to freedom, like a lone star on an artificial night.
The claustrophobic weight of the stone breaks, giving way to a vast, open hollow.The air is brittle and thin, smelling of ancient decay and new growth, but I drink it in—a desperate fuel that stifles the rising fire in my chest.
My head twists, losing a vital second of focus on the terrain before my foot catches on a root, as I fall hard onto the mossy ground.
The impact forces the breath from me; Yara’s bag tumbling from my shoulder, the contents spilling onto the ground like fallen leaves.Dragonious trees spin, a haze of scales blurring in my vision as the shadows close over me.No, this can’t happen now.
The world breaks once more.
* * *
I’m notin the forest anymore.I’m standing in black, endless and suffocating.Stars burn too close above, bejewelled grains of light in a ceiling of velvet.The ground hums beneath my feet, pulsing like a steady, resonant thrum.
