Stryker's Arc

Chapter 9 of 16

Stryker left the tent before sunrise and headed toward the ruins. The maps showed the way, but she needed to see the entrance for herself before committing to go inside. Guidry's route led her through shallow water that barely covered her scales. The ruins rose from the marsh exactly where Croaker's map had marked them. Half-collapsed stone walls leaned against each other, covered in moss and vines. But before she could examine the entrance, she saw something that stopped her cold. A tall stone monolith stood near the eastern approach, carved with symbols that spiraled down its face. The serpent carved into its center matched the drawings her grandmother had shown her—the exact curve of the scales, the precise angle of the coiled body. Below it ran lines of text in the same ancient script her grandmother had copied onto scraps of paper and pressed into Stryker's palm when she was seven. The symbols weren't from fever dreams or stories twisted by illness. They were here, carved into stone older than any local legend. Stryker pressed her scales against the monolith's surface and felt the grooves her grandmother had traced with shaking hands decades ago. Her grandmother had seen this. Had known this. The validation she'd been searching for wasn't inside the ruins with the gem—it was right here, proving that everything the dying snake had told her child was real.