Solara Moonwhisper's Arc

Chapter 5 of 8

The creature's roar still rang in the tunnel behind them. Solara flexed her hands. They no longer shook. The fight had changed them. She could feel her new strength in her bones, steady and heavy, like a tool she didn't yet know how to use. But strength meant nothing here. The halls of Ver-Sathaan split into a dozen dark throats. Take one wrong turn, she knew, and she would lose the city's waking heart forever. "We're guessing," her betrothed said behind her. He pushed his damp curls back and studied the black openings. His green eyes moved fast, counting exits the way he counted anything he didn't trust. The red phoenix bound to him shifted its wings against the low ceiling. "You feel it, don't you? Which way it hums?" "Not down here." The pressure behind her teeth was gone. That silence used to bring her relief. Now it left her blind. "The stone eats the sound." The purple phoenix landed ahead of them. It arched its long neck and struck the floor once with its beak. Dust jumped. Solara knelt where it had pointed. Her fingers found a raised edge under the grime. She pressed her new strength into it and heaved a slab of stone aside. It cracked in half against the wall. Beneath lay a wide plate of dark metal. Lines ran across it, thin as hair, joining rooms and stairs and long curved roads. A map. Not painted, but carved into the metal itself, cool under her palm. "That's the whole city," her betrothed said. He crouched beside her. "Every hall." Solara traced one bright line with her finger. At its center, deep below where they stood, a single mark pulsed with faint blue light. She knew it the way she knew her own heartbeat. The waking heart. She pressed her palm flat against the map and let the low hum rise again, and this time it answered, threading up through the metal into her bones. "There," she said. "Three levels down. Past the flooded stair." Her betrothed frowned at the mark. "The creature ruled that quarter. You drove it off, but its halls are still its halls." "Then we walk through its house." She lifted the metal plate. It was heavy. Her arms held it now without shaking. She could carry the map with her. The purple phoenix screeched and beat toward the flooded stair, showing the way. Solara followed. Behind her, cold water had already begun to seep up over the lower steps, black and rising. The map showed the path. It did not show what the creature had left waiting in the dark to guard it.