Page 214 of Of Empires and Dust

Calen’s steps echoed as he crossed the chamber, the baldírlight illuminating the dead. Most were clearly Uraks, but many were Highguard or Draleid or elves or Jotnar. They had died here in this dark desolate place, and here they had remained for four hundred years. He wondered if anyone had ever searched for them, if anyone had waited for them to come home.

“What is this place?” Lyrin asked. He, Haem, and Ruon walked beside Calen as they approached the opening in the wall.

Calen’s vision shifted between the world in which he stood and the world that had already ended. Through Kollna’s eyes, he saw Alvira standing where he stood. Before them was an enormous circular door of hewn white stone, the symbol of The Order inlaid in black glass at its centre.

The door flickered before him, solid one moment, in ruins the next.

Alvira pressed her hand against the black-glass symbol of The Order’s insignia. At her touch, a white light spread through the glass, runes glowing. Aclicksounded, and a low vibration thrummed through the stone beneath Calen’s feet. The door split into spiral segments and receded into the wall, warm light spilling through.

The world shifted again, and the door was gone. Calen once more stood before the gaping hole, darkness before him, his hand stretched out, palm open as Alvira’s had been.

Ildris now stood a few feet in front of him, Soulblade gripped in his fist, its green light illuminating a plateau strewn with rubble, bones, and black glass, a parapet-framed walkway stretching into the darkness.

Before Calen could speak, the world again shifted before his eyes, the shadows fleeing the warmth of a hundred lanterns.

Beyond the door was a cavern that reminded Calen of the wonder and awe he’d experienced when he’d first laid eyes on Durakdur. The walkway connected the circular door to a central platform that ran for hundreds of feet and from which countless other walkways sprouted.

On the outside of the parapet, the ground fell away, dropping into a chasm that seemingly held no bottom. Massive plateaus of hewn stone rose from the chasm between the walkways. Each held a white stone carving of a dragon egg at its centre, as wide as Calen was tall and double that in height. Four braziers blazed at the corners of each plateau.

Rows of pillars on the central platform supported another platform above it, and another above that, and so on for five storeys. The walkways that moved outward from each of the central platforms connected to open corridors that looked out into the cavern, doors and stairwells lining their walls.

Everything was smooth stone and sharp angles, not an inch of bare rock in sight. The entire place had been cut with the Spark, carved with purpose and intent.

Once more Calen knew he looked through Kollna’s eyes. He knew this place, knew it well. It was a vault. The only one of its like in Ilnaen. A place where only the Draleid and the Dracårdare were welcome. Elves, humans, and Jotnar moved along the walkways and the platforms, the flaming egg of the Dracårdare embroidered into their tunics and robes.

A Jotnar approached, shorter than Kollna, with long white hair and dark eyes. Black robes hung from his shoulders, white trim along the edges and the Dracårdare insignia on the left breast. Calen knew him – or rather, Kollna knew him. He was Umildan, son of Indara – Prime Keeper.

The Jotnar bowed deeply. “Archon Alvira Serris,” he said, each word slow and steady. “Daughter of Tamira Serris.” He turned his attention to Calen. “Draleid Kollna, daughter of Luan. It is an honour to welcome you both to this sacred place. I am told you wish to inspect the eggs and pay your respects.”

Calen’s vision blurred again, the lights of the lanterns and braziers growing bright before dimming and vanishing, leaving only the pale light of his baldír and that of Ildris’s Soulblade to hold the shadows at bay.

Calen squinted, traces of the lanternlight flashing in his eyes, playing tricks on his mind. “Whatever Alvira hid, she hid it in here.”

“You’re sure?” Kallinvar asked.

Calen didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled deeper from the Spark, pushing more energy into the baldír as he summoned it to rise and float above their heads. The pale light illuminated the vault, casting the walkways, platforms, and stone dragon eggs in dark shadows.

“By Achyron,” Ildris gasped, staring up at the open corridors to the right, his gaze lowering to fix on one of the many carved egg statues.

Calen moved onto the plateau and past Ildris and onwards to the walkway that connected to the central platform. Just like the rest of the city, skeletons adorned the walkway, many missing limbs, faces shattered, bones snapped. It felt almost wrong to Calen to be walking there, to be walking across their resting place. And yet another part of him thought it fitting that a Draleid be there to bear witness, to remember the cost of what had come before, to remember those who had fallen.

His vision flickered again, the skeletons vanishing to be replaced by Dracårdare moving across the walkways. Their robes flowed behind them in a way that made it look as though they were hovering, the lanternlight casting shadows around them. Some carried food and wine, others pulled small carts of wood and kindling or moved in pairs carrying chests between them, chests Calen knew contained dragon eggs.

A few moments and the lights and colours muddled once more, the chamber returning to the dark tomb it had become.

Calen wondered how many souls had found their final rest in Ilnaen. How many souls were simply never seen again, their corpses left to rot or the skin and flesh burned from their bones in the fires that had consumed all the Svidar’Cia.

A sigh touched his lips, warmth wrapping around his bones as Valerys pulled their minds together. The past could not be changed. It was stone and steel and iron, and it was set and cast. The dragon urged Calen onwards. They had come here for a purpose. And despite all the loss and death, that purpose must not be forgotten.

“I had no knowledge of this place.” Kallinvar’s voice carried in the open chamber as he caught up with Calen.

“I believe that was the intent,” Calen said, looking along the platform at the many walkways.

“Which way?”

Calen knelt by the Jotnar remains, faded and time-decayed robes still draped around the fleshless bones. He pressed his hand over the brittle fabric, hoping for…something.Expecting it. But nothing came. The world didn’t shift or blur, the colours didn’t muddle, and the lights didn’t flicker. And so he stared into the hollow caverns where the Jotnar’s eyes had once been, then rose, feeling sightless for the first time since coming to Ilnaen. “I don’t know.”

“I thought you said you could see the paths they walked?” Frustration crept into the Grandmaster’s voice, his stare hardening. “Thought you could see where Alvira hid what she hid?”

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