Page 20 of Season Warriors & Wolves

I put a finger to my lips. “Shhhh. He doesn’t know that.”

Demir sat up straight, his face entirely unreadable, there was so much to read that I could not concentrate entirely. Cautiously, he retreated away, his eyes never leaving mine.

Ruin. Ruin everywhere. Not like Olympia. A different type of ruin. The earth below my feet was scorched and covered with black ash and burnt gravel while hot steam leaked from below from pockets of air between the plates of land that had survived the wrath of divine anger.

Shrubs, ferns, mosses and whatever had grown over the old city remains were lit in a slow white flame that burned without consuming the plant. The land was cursed to burn forever.

We reached a large boulder that from its shape I would be able to recognise without a second look. I’d seen paintings, embroidery, miniatures, and many other designs of the fire god. The giant statue of Adan that once loomed over the city holding the ever-burning flame was now but pieces and so was the fire. Seraphim folk had divided their blessing, safely preserving the pieces in hearths hidden from sight after their fall five hundred years ago.

A group of men waved our party and led us further inside what seemed to be a maze of rock surrounded by thick-stemmed, fire red lianas blanketing their surface—the only life I’d seen not lit by fire.

“Don’t touch anything,” Demir warned when we turned into a narrower corridor.

Something was not right.

It felt like a thousand eyes were upon me, watching and tracing each of my steps.

The soles of my boots felt softer, melting into the heat radiating from underneath us. Rivulets of sweat were dripping down my temples and I had never wanted to crawl out of my own skin more than at that moment. I hated the heat as much as I hated the cold.

Demir's back muscles contorted, his spine arching and his limbs twisting as he shifted into his green form. “This is as far as we have gone before,” he growled, pulling me forward. “You go in.”

Courage as soft as their brains.

I scoffed, walking past him and into a crack between two collapsed stones leading into a dark cavity that stank of sulphur and smoke. My feet constantly tripped on much smaller rocks littering the ground which I could not see. Then something slithered around my leg, and I halted, evening out my breath and pulse to hear into the deafening silence for the movement that my senses had failed to catch.

Nothing.

When I took another step, the thing slithered around both my legs. The further inside I went, the further up my body it crawled, and soon, it began burning an icy sting. Immediately I stepped back, and they slithered away from me.

“The hells,” I wheezed, stumbling back.

Isjordian soldiers ran to my side, helping me to the ground before a fainting spell almost knocked me unconscious.

“We’ve lost about a dozen Crafters and a thousand men and Aura trying to just enter a few steps in,” Demir’s gravelly revealed.

I began patting down where I’d been burned. Except…my legs looked fine, the britches did not even have a mark on them and neither did my boots. I pulled one side up to reveal black charred marks on my skin that hurt more than I remember burns used to hurt.

“Adan’s fire,” an Isjordian Captain said, handing me some sort of ashy powder. “Put it on the wound, princess. It’s just winter moss.”

My body was about to go into shock from the stinging pain, so I immediately reached to rub it in my skin, heaving relief when it somewhat dissipated.

I looked around, my breath turning a frosty white and the ground beneath my feet began coating in ice at my command, stretching and covering every inch around us for miles.

“It will not work,” the captain said. “The fire melts right through our blessing. We have tried freezing them, pulling them and cutting them, but they always grow back in a matter of minutes.”

Could they not stiff the heavy stink? “Because they are created by the magic of a prime,” I said, ice spreading further over the red leafy crawlers. “Caramel and honey might taste the same, but they are not the same. My magic stems directly from gods, and yours is simply a lottery of luck.” I stepped inside the cave again. “How dumb can one be.” Months. It had taken these idiots months to realise something so plain.

Carefully, I took one step after the other toward where the darkness hollowed to absolute black out. I reached a hand forward, electricity dancing between my fingers to illuminate my surroundings.

The further I went, the more that shiver down my spine tingled and the heavy distant whispers grew even more faint. I was inside the veil, I could feel the suffocating feel of it and the distant whispers, yet nothing was happening.

The corridor was endless. I had walked for long minutes when I stopped and listened to the slight disturbance in the air. The humidity vibrated and I bent down to rest my palm against the stony floor below my feet. A steady beat resembling steps tickled my palm, growing louder and presumably closer to me. What could be heavy enough to do that?

A wave of unnatural heat hit me when I stood and then a pair of large, piercing titian eyes glowed in front of me followed by a loud growl that made the ruins over us rattle, dust and gravel flying around. The creature spat fire around me, giving the cave light and the thing a shape.

What in the seven hells?

The auburn dragon shifted on its massive claws, attempting to bat its wings that were chained all over to the walls around us.