Page 17 of What Blooms from Death

Phantom—who had shifted himself into a small, shadowy, mouse-like creature and curled up in the pocket of my cloak—poked his head out and swiveled it around. He sneezed. He was not a fan of storms. His spectral body trembled, and my chest tickled with the nervous energy rolling off him.

I curled a finger under his mousy chin, giving it a reassuring rub even though my touch went right through him. “It’s fine, Phantom. We’re heading away from it, I think.”

(And likely into something much worse.)

“Must you always be so pessimistic?” I said under my breath.

(I like to think I balance out your ridiculous optimism.)

“You can always stay here in the land of the living, you know.”

(You’d be lost without me.)

“True enough,” I muttered, grinning slightly as I sank deeper into my seat.

Finch dropped us off, as requested, at the head of an overgrown trail, right at the edge of a forest known as Ashenveil. He helped me down from the carriage, his eyes and his touch both lingering a little too long. A frown twitched at the edges of his thin lips as I pulled away from him.

His expression unsettled me. It felt like the lingering look of a person watching a knight heading off to war, knowing their return was unlikely—but how would he know? And why would he care? Finch and I had rarely spared each other more than a glance. He knew little about me. He certainly knew nothing of the war I had ahead; no one did, except Orin and me. We’d made certain of that.

Convinced I was imagining his concern, I offered a briskthank youand then quickly turned to the path we still had left to travel on foot.

Once well-used, the trail before me now appeared ominous at best. Weeds and fallen tree limbs claimed much of the walking space. Bits of broken, rusted lanterns gleamed in the sunlight—the remnants of ornate, bright sentinels that had once stood along the entire route.

Our real destination was a few miles south along this ruined path.

We started down it without a word. The silence—an unusual occurrence between us—settled deeper during our walk, lasting until the top of a steeply-pitched roof came into view. This was our true target: an abandoned shrine to Calista, Argoth’s beloved queen. It was one of several scattered throughout Eldris.

Once upon a time, through the doorways within these shrines, one could supposedly access various points along the Nocturnus Road with relative ease.

Now that I was truly approaching it, doubt threatened; I still wasn’t entirely sure portals like this could truly be real, even through the use of the correct blessings and spells or whatever else. But Orin was convinced. And his spells were successful more often than not—however messy thatsuccessended up being—so I didn’t hesitate to jog after him when he called on me to hurry up.

We made our way down paths that meandered through dried up fountains, through bits of crumbling statues, and then up the leaf-littered steps to the doorless shrine.

Inside, it smelled of dust and dead flowers. There was a hint of something waxy, too, as if melted candles had been stashed somewhere, though I never managed to spot them. The windows were missing most of their glass, but judging by the colorful, jagged teeth still around the edges, they had been beautiful during their better days.

Those teeth glinted in the early morning light, throwing radiant patterns across the entirety of the large space—save for one corner.

There, a spot for a door was set into the stone wall…but there was no actual door in place. There was only a frame with strange symbols etched deeply into its dusty wood.

The bricks within this frame were different from the walls around it. Newer—as if there was a room on the other side that had been closed off well after the shrine was completed. The whole area was cast in darkness. It seemed to absorb all the bright colors from the broken windows, no matter how the sun shifted and threw its beams through the glass.

Unnatural.

There was definitely something about it that was—

Orin cleared his throat. “Come look at this, Nova.”

I hesitated, my gaze still on the odd doorframe.

Phantom leapt from my pocket, his mouse body twisting, turning into shadows that reshaped themselves into his usual canine form. He hit the floor silently and, ever the curious one, he padded over to the long, narrow table that Orin stood before. Lifting onto his back paws, he appeared to brace against the edge of this table—though in reality, his near-weightless body was merely hovering over it, studying the art it contained.

I followed slowly, taking the space beside him.

It was a story that stretched before us—one told through scenes carved into thirteen separate slabs of marble affixed to the table’s top.

In the very center was a particularly eye-catching panel. On it, a man stood before a coffin covered in flowers and flanked on either side by two crimsonlith trees. Countless soldiers surrounded him, their heads bowed while the man’s face was lifted, staring upward. Looking at the scene, I was gripped with a feeling I couldn’t easily describe—a strange kind of…grief. Ahollowing cold that was survivable, yet miserable. That look in his upturned gaze…

Alone.

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