Page 35 of Favored By the Stars

"We need to go," Thorn said urgently, helping me to my feet. "Now."

The rumbling intensified. The symbols on the columns glowed, first silver, then gold, then a strange mingling of both that hurt my eyes to look at directly.

"The temple is waking," Volker breathed, a note of wonder in his voice despite our dire situation. "After all these centuries..."

"Waking?" Wyn's voice pitched higher with alarm. "What does that mean for us?"

The floor beneath us shuddered again, more violently this time. The pool of darkness at the center of the dais began to ripple and churn, no longer still but alive with movement, like something stirring from the depths of a long slumber.

"It means we've disturbed something ancient," Thorn said grimly, his arm tightening around my waist as he steadied me. "Something that wasn't meant to be disturbed."

I couldn't tear my gaze from the pool. The darkness was changing, transforming into something else, swirls of silver and gold now threaded through the black, like veins of precious metal in stone. My Mark throbbed in perfect synchronicity with the pulsing light.

"This is my fault," I whispered, the weight of realization crashing down upon me. "The guardian warned us. 'What lies beyond has slumbered undisturbed for centuries.' It meant this. It meant the temple."

Volker moved closer to the nearest column, his scholarly curiosity overriding his caution. "The symbols are changing," he said, his voice hushed with reverence. "They're rearranging themselves into a different script."

"Can you read it?" I asked, fighting against the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm me.

He squinted, tracing the air just above the glowing symbols. "It's ancient... pre-Sundering language. Something about 'the balance restored' and 'the circle unbroken.'" His fingers froze mid-air. "And... 'the return of the Twilight Sovereign.'"

A crack appeared on the stone floor, spreading outward from the dais like a spiderweb. The rumbling intensified, and somewhere deep within the cavern, I heard what sounded like massive stone doors grinding open.

"We need to leave," Thorn insisted, pulling me toward what appeared to be an archway on the far side of the temple. "Whatever's happening, we don't want to be here when it's done."

But my feet felt rooted to the spot, my body refusing to move away from the pool. The silver and gold threads within the darkness were forming patterns now, constellations, orbits, the paths of celestial bodies through the heavens. And at the center, the unmistakable image of an eclipse.

"Senara!" Thorn's voice seemed to come from very far away. "We have to go!"

With tremendous effort, I tore my gaze from the pool and turned toward him. The concern in his eyes anchored me back to reality, pulling me from the hypnotic draw of the ancient magic.

"Yes," I managed, forcing my feet to move. "Yes, let's..."

My words cut off as a blinding flash of light erupted from the pool, momentarily illuminating the entire temple. When my vision cleared, I saw the pool had changed completely. The darkness had transformed into a swirling vortex of silver and gold, spinning faster and faster until the colors blurred together into a brilliant white light.

"Look!" Wyn cried, pointing upward.

The ceiling of the cavern was dissolving, stone melting away like mist to reveal a night sky unlike any I had ever seen. Twin moons hung overhead, one silver, one gold, their paths clearly converging toward one another.

"An eclipse," Volker whispered, awe and terror mingling in his voice. "A double eclipse. It shouldn't be possible."

The ground beneath us heaved violently, throwing us all off balance. Thorn caught me before I could fall, his arms steady despite the chaos erupting around us.

"The doorway!" he shouted over the deafening rumble. "It's our only chance!"

We stumbled toward the archway, fighting against the trembling floor. The surrounding columns cracked, ancient stone giving way under the pressure of whatever force we had awakened.

As we reached the archway, I risked one final glance back at the temple. The pool had risen from the dais, suspended in midair as a perfect sphere of swirling light. Within its depths, I glimpsed a figure forming, neither male nor female, but something other, its features both familiar and alien.

Our eyes met across the distance, and in that moment, I felt a jolt of recognition so profound it stole my breath. The figure raised a hand toward me, lips moving in words I couldn't hear but somehow understood.

Return to us, Twilight Child. The time of reunion approaches.

"Senara!" Thorn's voice broke through my trance. He pulled me through the archway just as a massive section of ceiling crashed down where we had been standing seconds before.

We ran blindly down a narrow corridor, Wyn's light orb bobbing frantically ahead of us, casting wild shadows on the walls. The rumbling pursued us, the very mountain seeming to shift and rearrange itself around our fleeing forms.

"There!" Volker pointed ahead to where the corridor widened into what appeared to be a natural cave. "I can feel a breeze, there must be an exit!"

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