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“I told you I would spank—”
“Arran,” I demanded harshly. “Look!”
He was glaring at me—thinking it was another joke. Another way to torture and tease. But I knew when he realized, when he saw it as well.
He sucked in a breath, sharp and quick. Followed by a growl.
The vines and leaves peeled back. The branches were a little slower, but in less than a minute the way was clear.
“It was overgrown,” I breathed, laying my hand on the stone. “Creating the clearing… you must have unearthed it.”
A single standing stone. A monolith.
Almost identical to the ones that marked the mountain rift in Eldermist. Except this one had different carvings.
Different than the ones in Eldermist—but not unique.
I’d seen this before. We both had.
In the water gardens.
* * *
“They aren’t completely identical,” I said, several steps back in the clearing.
A ball of fire in Lyrena’s hand lit the dark niche off of the main clearing Arran had created. She held it up as Cyara and Osheen peered at the carvings.
“But the differences are almost indiscernible,” Arran said at my side.
He had one eye on Percival—still tied up, useless crystal in his hands. The man was clinging to it, even though none of us had seen it do anything remotely magical.
“The content is the same, but the style is slightly different. Like a letter written by one person, and then copied by another,” I said.
We’d poured over every inch of the inscriptions before fetching the others. The Great War, the humans, the fae… the repeated outlines of Annwyn hovering over one another. All of it was there, just like in the water gardens.
“Which is the original?” Cyara wondered aloud.
Osheen quirked a brow. “Does it matter?”
A slight quiver of white wings. “Maybe.”
“Whoever carved that didn’t think very highly of the humans.” Osheen returned to the larger clearing, one eye on Maisri. She was making tea over a small fire on the other side of the circle.
We’d wasted enough of the afternoon on the monolith and its carvings. We might as well make use of the open space for our campsite. A few more days’ travel, according to Percival, and we’d emerge from this jungle in the shadow of the mountains.
“I noted that the first time, in the water gardens.” Arran’s arms were crossed over his chest. They had been, ever since that initial inspection.
He was glaring at the standing stone. As if he might scare it into revealing its secrets to him. “But this is the human realm. Why would a human depict their own kind so viciously?”
“Because they aren’t human.” Percival and his fucking revelations.
This time, I had a sinking feeling I knew what was coming.
“They are nightwalkers.”
Percival was the new recipient of Arran’s glare. “This stone is thousands of years old.”
“So are the water gardens,” Cyara said, stepping back into the main clearing. “They date from the original construction of the goldstone palace, around the time of the Great War.”
