Page 111 of An Empress of Earth & Darkness

He rolled his lips, and she thought she caught sight of a dimple, but then it was gone and now he wore his commander’s mask. “We need to get past the grand doors and make it inside to an area that sits in the heart of the grounds. That’s where the room that honours the Three-Faced God is. If my assumptions are right, I would bet my life that we would find something in there regarding the Stones, if not one of them. It is dedicated to their creator, to their mother.”

“How do you guys not know this stuff for sure? Aren’t you sent off to hunter school for this shit?” Breighly scowled. “Are we really going off assumptions? This place is huge.”

Torin’s gaze flickered over her. “I learned more about this temple in the fighting pits, than I did in the Selection, put it that way.”

“What do you mean?” Emara coaxed, unable to hide the surprise in her voice.

“I wasn’t only in the fighting pits to let off some steam and avoid my father’s decisions.” Torin finally halted and looked over his men. “I had caught wind in the markets that some temple raiders were betting stolen goods instead of coin on the winners in the pits. Some were said to be invaluable. I was hoping there was someone crooked enough to have stolen one of the God Stones or something that would help us find one. I was hoping that they would have been stupid enough to talk. Or, if I won enough fights, that I could negotiate some information.” The lowering sun blessed Torin’s hair with a golden shimmer amongst the black. “I was hoping that someone down there was working on behalf of Veles or Balan, something that I could go on.”

“But nothing?” Breighly asked.

“Not nothing,” Torin replied as his eyebrows pinched. “I didn’t come across any Stones with my wins, but the traders did like to talk, especially after I got them shit-faced. One night, one of the fixers told me that he had once tried to raid the Temple and had gotten as far as the room of the Three-Faced God. The man said he had almost gotten down the steps.”

“Steps?” Artem butted in, surveying their surroundings. “There is no downstairs in the room of the Three-Faced God; it is at the lowest part of the temple. That’s impossible. So your fixer wasn’t just drinking rat piss, he was talking rat piss too.”

“That’s what had me intrigued, Stryker.” Torin grinned wickedly. “Get a temple raider drunk enough and they begin to trip over their words; they lose their secrets to the liquor.” His ocean eyes glowed like he was part of something more mysterious. “There must be a secret floor. There must be something that holds a secret passage to a tomb underneath, because the man who told me the story lost his own eyes and hand as the Fae guards seized him. They didn’t want him seeing what was in that room or where the passage was, so the blinded him and cut off one of his hands for even having been near the tomb. That leads me to think that there is something there. And we are going to find it.”

“Well, as the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire.” Artem twirled an axe in his hand.

“Exactly,” Torin agreed. “These temples are bound to have hidden passages—look at how many the Tower has.”

“The Tower has secret passages?” Emara exclaimed.

“Maybe I can show you them when we get back.” Torin’s tone was so low and suggestive, heat flushed through Emara’s cheeks. Did he have no shame?

Gods, it was warm outside.

Breighly held out a hand. “Are we going to pretend that there are not dead guards lying everywhere? Like the something that wanted to get inside got inside and—oh, I don’t know—maybe hasn’t come out yet?”

“It sounds like the princess wolf might finally feel fear,” Artem teased, his eyebrows dancing up.

“It’s not fear that I feel, you idiot, it’s intelligence. You should try it sometime,” she hissed. “Seriously, what if the knights of the underworld are in there and it isn’t just a band of lower demons? We are fucked.”

If the Knights of the Underworld were here, it would be more than slaying one demon and moving on to the next. They were faster, more powerful. They could use their voices to manipulate your mind into pain. They could transform into Rhiannon only knew what. They would be much harder to kill, and everyone standing here knew that.

Arlo came to stand with his brother. “The wolf has a point. We have no idea how many demons are here.”

“Well, we are here now, so you need to make the decision if you are in or out.” Breighly swallowed, and her gaze turned steely as her shoulders pressed back. Torin glanced at Arlo, who squared his shoulders. The clan behind them also agreed that they should continue the hunt. Torin nodded. “I have already killed a few of the higher demons in the Dark Army, so these won’t be my first or my last. If there are any knights of the underworld here, take no chances. Aim for the heart and the head. Do not miss.” Torin began his climb up the temple steps. “I mean it, do not miss. They are hard to kill, not impossible. Hunt smart.”

“Let’s hunt.” Artem grinned.

Emara could feel the power radiating from the temple. It leaked magic, and some of it brushed against her skin like an ancient hand caressing her magic.

The steps to the entrance were steep, and Emara was terrified that if she looked down, she would lose her balance and crash into the stone. The gilded doors were open, suggesting that whatever had come before them had pried them apart. Torin’s movement slowed in front of her. Her heart almost bruised her ribs as she took in the blood on the floor. Yet there were no bodies.

Aromas swirled from multiple hanging copper incense balls at the front of the temple; they seemed to levitate in the air above them like huge planets, spiralling under some sort of air witchcraft. Candles burned, flickering as they walked past each one, and Emara wondered if the person who had lit them still lived.

The space was eerily quiet as they tiptoed through the huge room with high ceilings and floors like water, the blue marble detailed with swirling gold. Silver and gold tiles continued up the walls inside, casting broken reflections of the unit as they walked through the home of the Gods.

Following Torin’s lead through the temple, they finally reached a mural-covered door. Fire licked up from the bottom, painted in russet and bronze, and water spilled from clouds, droplets of rain trickling down onto gardens of metallic green. Emara’s eyes slid to the silver whooshes of air that blew in tiny orbs of spirits that glowed in a delicate lilac.

All five elements, working together.

Above the colourful beauty was a golden rune, the old symbol for the maiden, the mother, and the crone.

Torin reached out like the door called for him to open it, but there was no handle. It was locked.

Artem hissed a curse. “Great, a door with no handle! Is there anything else you want to throw at us, Gods?”

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