Page 216 of The Lands Defying
We round another corner, and both me and Darius halt in our step.
Flowers cover the whole area, and I wonder if this was maybe a garden room or something with the sheer amount. Water trickles down the sides of what is left of some of the walls, and a sweet scent travels to us.
A white, oval archway rests ahead in the center on a raised platform. It looks almost ethereal as it stands amongst the destroyed room, but that arch isn’t touched by the destruction or age of this place of worship. Almost like nothing could if it tried.
Ivy wraps around the arch with flowers blooming amongst it, and I go toward it. Walking up the cracked steps, my foot lands on the floor and it glows a gentle blue.
“Umm, Darius,” I say nervously, and he’s at my side in an instant.
“What did you do?” he asks.
“Nothing!” He looks to me and then the ground before taking a step.
“Wait!” I say in a panic. But all that occurred was the ground turning black beneath him. My brows furrow. “What does this mean?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know.” He looks ahead. “Let’s keep going, but stay close.”
With his hand on my arm, we take tentative steps toward the middle, the ground a mixture of black and blue.
“It’s reacting to us somehow,” I say.
“There must be some residue of power beneath us.”
We continue until we pause at the arch. It is taller than Darius, and wider than us standing side by side. I look it over in wonder and watch as tendrils of blue and black come up from the ground to slither up the arch. A flower grows and blooms bigger, but the black magic chases it, and it wilts and dies.
“That’s not ominous.”
Darius looks at me for a moment, then to the dying flowers. “It’s a balance,” he says, raising a hand and touching the arch. “We are the balance of the lands and the unknown, and it reacts to it. Put a small amount of power in, just a little and together.”
“Like we did with the lilk trees?” He nods. “Okay, I can do that.”
Raising my hand on the opposite side to him, I give him a nod, then we are both pushing power into the arch.
The flowers bloom, then die, then bloom and die again, but eventually, we find a balance of having the same amount of power, and the flowers bloom at the top with a single black strand wrapping around the stalk. Living in harmony.
I look to Darius and smile, watching as our power travels to the other flowers covering the area. It spreads out, faster and faster until it’s covering the whole room.
“Wow,” I whisper, not wanting to disturb the magic flowing here. “It’s beautiful—”
A thunderous rumble sounds and the ground begins the tremble.
Darius grabs me instantly, taking us a few steps back and his magic wraps around us at the waist for protection. The arch in front starts to wobble, bits of stone crumbling from it with how forcefully the room is now shaking.
“What’s happening?” I ask in shock, huddling closer to Darius. Ahead of us, something comes out of the floor on either side. “Look.” I point to it, and Darius moves back more as two statues appear out of the ground.
They are chipped too, huge chunks broken off, but it’s so clear as to what they are.
“Darius...” I say nervously.
“It seems we are in a temple of the Gods.”
Sixty Three
Rhea
The two huge statues of wolves come to a stop, looking down upon us. One dark, one light. They sit proud and strong, ears perked.
There is a feeling in the air, like something out of the lands, like something old and powerful.
