Page 91 of A Queen Of Broken Realms
We make it ontoSpes Aeternaand the road is eerily quiet on this side. We can still hear the distant fighting, but rows ofanunnakisoldiers wait in utter silence here, their golden armor glinting in the dim light as their lungs fill and empty. I look up and see more soldiers on the rooftops, their bows targeting the skies. A shout comes from a building across the road and the group of angels there let their arrows fly, taking down a cohort of three enemyanunnakiwho must be attempting to get behind their lines.
“Our elite army,” Aloros says as we stride past them. “TheMilites Lucis.”
We continue on in silence past the rows of soldiers until we make it to the grounds of the ziggurat, and then we jog up the ramp that leads to its entrance. Guards fill the chamber and they move away to let us pass, some of them glancing at my crown, others taking in Ashen’s torn wings and the sparks that spray in his wake. Many give us grim nods of thanks.
Aloros leads us on a circuitous route through doors and corridors to a set of white marble stairs that spiral into the heart of the ziggurat. We twist deeper and deeper into the structure, and it starts to feel like it will never end. Occasionally, we pass an opening to a floor and I have the fleeting hope each one might be where we stop, but it’s not. But after what seems like an eternity, we finally make it to the end of the stairway, the landing opening to a dimly lit corridor that in turn ends at a door of shifting light and color.
Aloros places his palm to the door and the mechanism inside registers his essence, the gears whirring to life within as a series of locks release within. With a final click, the door swings open, revealing a gold wall of ticking rings and a polished lapis stone at its center. “The key of Soulfate,” Aloros says, and we enter the room.
The ticking rings shift with metronomic precision in opposite directions, the Dingir text lighting the room in a gentle glow.
“What does it mean?” Ashen asks as he takes a step closer, his gaze flicking across the room before it lands on the stone once more.
“The text? No fucking clue.”
“No,” he says. “Well yes, I guess that too. I mean the voice.”
I tilt my head, my brow scrunching. “Voice?”
Ashen looks around the room again as though searching for the source of the sound. “The whispering. It’s getting louder.”
I gasp, a smile creeping across my face as his words suddenly fall into place. “You hear whispering,” I say, and he nods. “It’s not me. It’syou, Ashen.”
“I’m not whispering,” he scoffs, his gaze darting to me and then the stone, then back again. “What?..”
“It’s you, Ashen.Youare connected to the stone of Soulfate.”
Ashen laughs as though I’m crazy, but it dies off into silence as he realizes I’m dead serious. I give him a reassuring nod as the realization takes hold in his bones. “No, Lu…” he says, shaking his head. “That can’t be true.”
“Why not? You have the ability to travel to the Realm of Light, don’t you?”
“If summoned, yes—”
“Chaperoned?”
“I…well, no…but…” Ashen looks at each of us as though there’s some other explanation, running his hand through his sweaty hair, the Sumerian glyphs of his rank glowing on his knuckles. He rustles his wings, the torn snakeskin grazing the floor. The burnt edges shift against the stone, and it cracks my heart when he gestures at himself as though he’s broken. As though he’salwaysbeen broken. “No, Lu. I’m not—”
“Not what, Ashen? Worthy? Just? Fair?” I ask as I take his hand, leading him toward the stone. “Super hot in swimwear? Slightly obsessed with butter?”
Ashen snorts a laugh that quickly dies. He swallows and opens his mouth to argue but I squeeze his hand.
“I know what you are, Ashen. You’re loving. Courageous. Resilient. Honorable. You have a soul just as deserving of being chosen as anyone else that you love.”
I’m able to hear the whisper when it becomes a ribbon that snakes around the room, waving through the heights of the ceiling like a snake testing the boundaries of a cage. It spirals around us, dropping in height as it circles. “Get ready to catch it,” I say, keeping my hand wrapped around Ashen’s wrist.
The ribbon shoots toward the door, heading for the stone. Ashen grabs the end and I start chanting with the whisper, nodding to him in encouragement to do the same. Ashen repeats the Dingir incantation and I help him to wind the ribbon up his arm. Just as the rings open, I thrust his wrist forward and he grabs the stone.
We’re blasted to the floor with an unseen force as the rings slip beneath one another, opening the window to a glimpse of the domain of an ancient god.
Much like last time, the space beyond the rings is brightly lit, but instead of threads there are little sparks flashing through the room. They drift away from us with comet tails, and the nearest ones pull away to reveal a person sitting in the distance. There’s too much light to make out any more than their basic form, and it’s only a moment before the rings close once more and the entire scene is hidden from view.
“She spoke to me,” Ashen says, his voice a little awed as he looks down at the lapis stone humming in his hand. “She said ‘Ashen gud Urbigum. Rakbu shisitum. Eteru sut.’”
“I’m guessing that’s the same kind of message I was given. They’re asking for us to save them.”
Ashen meets my eyes and smiles, and despite everything, I see a little relief in him. “Then we’d better do just that. We need to get back home and regroup so we can figure out where the gateway is.” He turns toward Aloros as he places the stone into a small bag attached to my belt. “Do you have any ancient texts related to the fates that we could take with us?”
“Likely, yes,” Aloros replies, and he nods for us to follow him back out the door, shutting it behind us. The locks click into place. “I will take you to the area where they are most likely located in the library.”
