Page 140 of The Stolen Throne
“If you haven’t noticed, time does that a lot,” I mutter under my breath as I haul myself up and sneeze as I brush the black dust off my backside.
He means it literally, though. He and Omma have told us how getting into the lands requires us to be at a certain place when the sun rises. I hurry to the mouth of the canyon. Bene tromps along in my wake, Omma and Tabra still perched on his back, until we get to where the land abruptly drops away.
Or I should say that Bene stops where the ground drops away, and I stop a good twenty paces back from that.
The mouth of Muertum Canyon, at the bottom of which we should find the gates to the land we’re here to find answers in.
“Going by foot will not work,” Bene says. “I forgot how narrow and steep the path is and how much time descending can take.”
Narrow and steep. Two words I could do without hearing.
Before I can ask for an alternative, he takes to the skies, Tabra and Omma both giving startled yelps before he snatches me up in what shifts into a sandy talon instead of a hoof.
“Seriously?” I manage to protest.
He ignores me, flying in tight circles that make my head spin and my stomach heave all the way to the bottom of the canyon. At least he sets me down more carefully this time. He lowers to his belly to let them down, too, though immediately Tabra has to sit on a nearby rock, knees pulled into her chest and her chin resting on them.
Standing beside her, I look around at a dry creek bed, boulders, canyon walls, and dead shrubs, all black as a starless patch of glittering night sky. Many would likely consider it ominous. Not me. Fascination stirs inside me. Black isn’t a color of death to me, but a color of comfort, a place to hide. The place in between when Reven shadows us.
Nothing around us, however, looks anything like a gate—just regular old rock walls. “Is this the right place?”
“You always were impatient,” Omma complains. “Just watch.”
Watch? We don’t have time to sit around.
“Any moment now.” Bene’s face is tilted upward. He’s watching the skies. Overhead, the setting three moons peep over the edge of the onyx-colored canyon walls.
“What happens when the light—” On the opposite side of the canyon, a brilliant glimmer of the sun peeks over the top of the land.
I gape at the rare sight. I’ve seen both the sun and the moons awake in the sky at the same time before, but from this vantage point, it’s almost as though they are playing peekaboo with one another behind the canyon walls, greeting each other with a kiss of light before the moons hide away for the day as the sun rises into the sky.
And in that kiss of different shades of lights, both hot and cold, I imagine me and Reven. Sun and moons. Desert and ice. Like the celestial orbs, will we only ever be granted a precious few moments together?
The sun draws higher, and the moons disappear. A strange shimmering on the ground catches at my attention.
A thousand embers ignite all around us, reminding me of the Sacred Tree and the way I make glass. Tabra slips her hand into mine as the glowing orange embers blanket us in light. Flirt with us, even, as they float higher in the air in a dance of fire and magic. The light warms the canyon walls…and reveals a man.
No, not a man. A giant.
Tabra’s grip tightens. He is a hundred feet tall at least. His face and body are etched from layers of obsidian rock, all crags and crevices where features should be.
Great. A rock giant. My power over sand won’t touch this creature. I’m not sure Bene can do much, either. If things go badly, Tabra, Omma, and I—the last of Aryd’s royalty—are dead. Eidolon will be thrilled.
The giant sits with his back against the wall of the canyon, one leg outstretched in front of him all casual-like, but I suspect he’s anything but. He’s blocking what I can now see is a narrower crevice that leads away to the south.
A slot canyon—I’ve heard of them, especially in the Crimson Desert, but never seen one. Not that I can see all that much now because of the massive bent knee in my way.
Directly across from him, on the other side of the entrance to the crevice, the canyon wall has crumbled away in a rockslide. We will have to climb over his leg and a ton of boulders to enter. And not wake the giant up in the process.
“Oh my heavenly goddess,” Tabra breathes.
I can only nod, suddenly wishing Reven was here to witness this with me.
“What?” Omma murmurs beside me. “No snappy comments?”
I don’t bother to look at her. “I’m saving them all up just for you.”
“Something to look forward to, then.”
