Page 11 of Destroyer

Then Ru turned to Rosylla, who held out her hand for a shake. Ru pulled her in for a hug instead, her heart seizing slightly.

“Be safe,” she said in the other woman’s ear.

“Always am,” said the rider. “Good luck, Ruellian.”

Too quickly, Ru was ushered away from the three riders. She had come to consider them, in so short a time, almost friends. Her heart ached. She missed the Tower, the familiarity of its corridors and stairways, the ever-present smell of leather-bound books. The Shattered City was so vast, so unwelcoming, and none of these guards or researchers — bustling though the site may be — were familiar to Ru.

Lady Maryn either had no interest in Ru’s discomfort or didn’t notice it. She was all business, taking Ru’s shoulder with one hand and leading her past the guard, past the circle of tents and into the dig site at last.

As they made their way into the site, a slight caress of emotion pulsed against the deepest recesses of Ru’s mind. A reminder, a confirmation that the internal pull toward the crater had been real — not just a flare of panic. She bit her lip, focusing on Lady Maryn’s confident gait, the packed earth at her feet, the murmur of voices, the ocean’s breeze in her hair. Tangible things.

They approached a small group of researchers, dressed much like Ru and Lady Maryn, standing in a cluster at the center of the dig site. A few of them hurried forward to greet them with handshakes and nods. They all seemed excited, on edge, or both. Their eyes were wide, their bodies practically vibrating with…wasit excitement? Or contained dread?

Ru shook their hands, introducing herself to each of them. She wondered if they felt like she did, frightened but eager. Their restless movements and bright expressions said they did. She was grateful that no one seemed to mind that she was a joke in the academic world, the woman who had set out to convince everyone of the existence of magic, only to fail completely.

“There’s no time to waste,” said Lady Maryn, putting a curt stop to the handshaking and empty pleasantries. Her sharp gaze alone settled everyone into an anticipatory silence.

When all was quiet, the wind in the tents the only sound, Lady Maryn spoke again. “Show her.”

An excited murmuring rose immediately, the researchers glancing at one another, sharing wan smiles or apprehensive looks. As they did so, they parted, leaving space for Ru to walk between them. To what, Ru had no idea. Her chest felt tight as if she might cry or take off running.

She felt, ridiculously, that whatever lay beyond them had been waiting for her. Thatitwas the voice that had called to her.

Lady Maryn held out a hand, encouraging Ru to step forward.

“Don’t touch it,” she warned, as Ru started forward, heart in throat. “We’ll set you up with equipment later, everything you’ll need. But I want you to see it first.”

Ru hardly registered these words. The murmur of the researchers faded to a low hum. Her eyes landed on a dark earthen hole beyond them, deep as a grave but circular, shadowed in its depth. Her feet moved of their own volition, and she continued forward as if in a trance.

That strange feeling again took hold of her, pulling, encouraging.

When she came to the edge of the hole, heart pounding, she paused. She was breathless, aching with anticipation, like a lover on the edge of climax. She felt as if she should jump bodily into the hole. She believed that she might have actually done it if Lady Maryn’s warning wasn’t still ringing in her ears.

And yet, despite the pull she felt in her core, Ru was afraid to look. Terrified to peer down into the strange gloom where the sun — even so high in the sky — didn’t seem to reach. As if she might see an ultimate truth there, an answer to a question she didn’t want to ask.

“Well?” said Lady Maryn.

Ru, startled, turned away from the hole. She saw the gathered researchers, watching tensely, their expressions mirroring her own. Lady Maryn stood in front of them, arms crossed over her chest.

“What?” Ru said, feeling stupid, her brain working wine-slow, as if intoxicated.

“The artifact,” said Lady Maryn. She was frowning, worrying at her lower lip. “Take a look. We’d like to know, based on your professional opinion, whether or not it’s magic.”

CHAPTER4

What is fate? What cords that run through time and space, through souls and living matter, draw us together or apart? What alchemy guides us through our lives from birth to death? Is it random? Or is it guided by an unseen force?

Ru had asked these questions before, but never deeply or intensely. Rather, she asked in passing, wondering as she fell asleep, in boredom, or when she woke in the night and felt alone. Maybe that was what drew her to the concept of magic, the peeling back of the known to reveal an unplumbed depth. So much of the world was a mystery. So much of science was obscure, an equation yet to be solved.

Even the Destruction, the cause of it, King Alaric and Taryel Aharis, figures more of myth than history. Yet, here she stood, where a city had once been. How did the pieces fit together? What science, what mathematical formula, explained a city’s total destruction, countless generations ago?

Perhaps Ru had always been asking, seeking an answer to those questions. What lay behind the meaning? Did unseen forces push and pull us as we stumbled through existence?

Something snapped in her, then, when she knelt at the lip of the hole, knees in the dirt. A brief wonder. Clarity of thought. For a split second she knew, more clearly than she had ever known anything, that she was meant to be here.

A pull on her mind, her heart, whatever it was, told her she was right. A pull that came from the darkness, from whatever lay in that excavation of the earth.

There were no lights to illuminate the cavity. Whatever they’d dug up had been left exactly where they found it. She wondered if it had been touched at all, aside from with brushes. With gentle gloved fingers. They were afraid of it, whatever it was. Afraid and excited, in the way someone would be after seeing a ghost, or magic.

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