Page 91 of Unleashed

The abrupt tree line gave way to grass, allowing full view of the rise they were standing upon. The grass grew sparse near the rise’s rocky edges, which fell away to steep slopes. The stone path at Nina’s feet — stones that had been shaped, cut, and placed with meticulous care — continued forward through the grass and along a narrow footpath bridging the rise with a huge, isolated mesa. She knew the dark walls and buildings atop the mesa well; they were all in the right places. Everything was bathed in the silver glow of two moons that had materialized overhead.

“That…that is Bahmet,” Nina said, unable to take her eyes off the place she called home.

But thiswasn’ther home. This wasn’therBahmet. It couldn’t be. She’d never seen a stone path in the woods leading into the city, and that was only the most immediate of what wasn’t right.

“Bahmet?” Balir asked. “Your home?”

“Yes, but it’s…not,” Nina said. “It’s different. The same, but it’s just…wrong.”

“I know this place,” Aduun said. “These mountains. But this…this should not be here.”

“This was built after you were changed, after Kelsharn took control over Orishok’s people,” Nina replied numbly, licking her lips. “He forced them to build this place.”

“They built all of that?” Vortok asked incredulously. “Our tribe lived in tents made of hide and bone. How could we build those structures?”

“Remember when I said Orishok wasn’t like you? He was made into somethingmore, and Kelsharn made some use of the valos of another Creator to assist in building this place. Quinn says the Creators were like gods… I know you don’t know what that is, but it means they had unfathomable power. If they can change creatures into new forms, like they changed you, if they can give life to stone, fire, and shadow, if they could make all…this,” she swept her hands through the air, indicating everything around them, “they can do anything.”

“So at some point during our trip through that darkness, we emerged from the caves?” Aduun asked.

“No. I think we’re still underground,” she walked forward. The valos delayed for only a moment before hurrying to walk with her. “Like I said, something’s different here. This isn’t the Bahmet I know.”

No one spoke as they approached the ominous wall around the city. The archway leading through was fully intact, as it was in Bahmet now; she could still remember it having been crumbled when she was very young, before the stone valos helped repair much of the damage the city had suffered after centuries of neglect. Orishok’s people had never seen a reason to fix any of it; they hadn’t possessed their heartstones, hadn’t required food or shelter to survive, hadn’tcared.

The differences between this place and the Bahmet she knew grew more apparent once they were within the walls. Her home was filled with vibrant vegetation, all cultivated by herself and her parents. It was a city full of life and color despite boasting only three inhabitants.

Here, the vegetation had a twisted, wild look. Tall trees stood along the main road, but they appeared stretched, withered, and somehow malicious. The stone around their bases was uneven and cracked, displaced by their gnarled roots. The street was deserted; there wasn’t a valo statue in sight. None of Orishok’s people were here to await Sonhadra’s eventual embrace. The stony remains had been people, and she’d come to know them in her own way throughout their childhood. They were part of what made Bahmethome.

The voices grew louder with every step, begging her, urging her, demanding she move forward.

Come. Come now!

You are close! Free us!

As they entered the square, Nina came to a halt. There were twelve twin-peaked stone mounds, each taller than her, in a ring around the crystal formation. In her Bahmet, that spot was home to a statue of Orishok that Quinn had sculpted, a benevolent protector who held vigil over his dead tribe. It had been a replacement for the huge statue of Kelsharn that once stood in its place, hiding the lost heartstones of the death valos inside the platform beneath it.

But she wasn’t sure what to call the thing on the platform before her now. A crystal pyramid? The base of the formation covered the platform completely, and it tapered steeply near the top to end in a fine point. It was a mess of rough crystalline planes, many of the surfaces muddy and unpolished, and stood perhaps fifteen feet high. The voices emanated from the crystal, vibrated through it, at their loudest and most insistent.

Her feet moved of their own accord, carrying her closer to the crystal.

She broke her gaze away from the formation abruptly. It took everything within her to quiet the voices screaming in her mind, to shut out the demands for release, to resist their strange compulsion. She shifted her course and approached one of the stone mounds again.

She placed a hand on one of the peaks and looked down to find heartstones on the ground.

“These…these are stone valos,” she said.

Did their people in Corfoha know of these dormant valos? How long had these remains been here? She couldn’t imagine Zoya, Rock, or Vlunn leaving them here, alone, with their heartstones scattered amidst the dirt and weeds.

Aduun, Balir, and Vortok cautiously joined her. She saw their wary gazes at the edges of her vision. Vortok’s hackles were raised, and Aduun’s quills were up. Her unease mirrored theirs. Everything about this place screamed at her to run.

“What happened here?” Aduun asked, voice low. Nina got the sense that he feared speaking too loudly would wake something terrible.

“I don’t know. The voices are coming from the crystal, but I…I don’t know what it is or what happened here,” Nina replied.

“The voices are coming fromthat?” Vortok grunted, projecting a glimmer of fear from him.

As though roused by their mention, the voices assailed her with renewed strength. Nina clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, pushing them away, forcing them out of her head. She met an unsettling amount of resistance.

Something else flickered on the edge of her awareness. Rage. Hunger. Dozens of bestial minds, all worked into a frenzy, all railing against something.

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