Page 116 of The Isles of the Gods
There’s a rhythm to this place that feels like my heartbeat.
The ground grows steeper, and my breath comes harder as we climb. I can see more daylight between the trees now—we’re coming closer to the island’s peak—and we pause to pull each other up the steepest parts, linking hands and heaving.
“How long do you think we’ve been climbing?” Selly huffs after a while, hauling on Keegan’s arm as he scrambles up a slippery part of the path.
“Twenty minutes?” he guesses, producing a piece of cloth from a pocket—I can’t call what he’s holding a handkerchief, and I’m sure it never was. He uses it to mop his brow, mostly just spreading sweat and grime around.
“This is the path, right?” Selly asks, squinting suspiciously up what could only generously be described as a track.
“This is it,” I say, holding out my hand for her to haul me up next. Her grip locks into mine, she heaves, I push off a tree, and somehow I clamber up beside her. We stand there, still holding hands, both panting for breath. “This is it,” I say again. “Every account in the journal says the temple is at the summit, and if there’s one thing we’re doing, it’s going uphill.”
“Everything about you is uphill,” she mutters, but the habitual jab feels like affection now, and she lets me twine my fingers through hers.
It’s only a few minutes later that we find a clearing dead ahead. The trees stop abruptly, though there’s no sign the clearing is man-made—no sign of stumps, or that new saplings want to impinge on this space.
At the center stands a temple of ancient stone. It’s a low building, broad at the base, rising to a point at its peak. Vinescreep up its dark sides, winding around the structure, tendrils tucked into every crack in the stone. Moss grows down the side nearest us, like green velvet pulled thin, giving the whole thing an emerald sheen.
I can feel the power of this place as I gaze up at it, but there’s a strange thread of discomfort running through the sensation. Like I’m in the middle of a race I’ve trained to run, but suddenly there’s a thorn in my shoe.
Something’s wrong.
Does she find me wanting? Does she pay enough attention to the passage of time and the affairs of men to know I’m late?
“We’re here in time.” Selly’s voice breaks into my thoughts, as if answering them somehow. But when I turn, she’s looking through a gap in the trees to the cove far below.
I see theEmmaanchored by the silent black boat, but there’s still no sign of the pursuers we saw behind us on the horizon. My anticipation, though, my dreams of clambering back down the hill, of clearing the mouth of the cove before Laskia arrives—it’s suddenly muted, half buried beneath this strange discomfort.
“Are you ready?” Keegan asks.
I nod, my mouth dry, and flex my hands, stretching my fingers and then balling them into fists. “I’m ready.”
We walk toward the temple together.
I can feel the two of them behind me, but my attention is focused forward, and the world around me fades away as I let my senses range ahead toward the altar within the temple. I’m nearly at the entrance now.
Selly grabs my arm an instant before I stumble over thebodies, yanking me back. For a moment I’m caught off balance, looking around at her with frustration that borders on anger. Then I follow her gaze, and Keegan’s, and I see the four of them stretched out before us.
They’re facedown, half in and half out of the temple’s arched opening, one with an arm thrown out toward us as if in silent appeal.
They’re aged and desiccated, hair stringy, skin stretched tight—but their clothes are still intact. And…the earth is disturbed around that outflung hand. There are scratch marks, as though the body tried to pull itself forward, and they’re as fresh as if they were made only minutes ago.
“How could the clothes, the—” Selly grimaces and gestures to the scratch marks on the ground. “How could they have lasted all this time, while the bodies ended up like that? It must take a long time for someone to dry out. And whydidthey dry out instead of rotting, or whatever happens in a hot, wet climate like this?”
Keegan comes up beside us and drops into a crouch. He nods respectfully at the temple’s opening, then gently turns over one of the bodies, easing it onto its back with a careful touch.
It was once a woman, I think, with long hair, clad in light cotton skirts, and at her collar is a ruby pin winking at us in the sunlight.
“They didn’t come on behalf of Alinor, or Barrica’s people,” Keegan says quietly. “Behold the fate of those who do not come here to pray.”
“Seven hells,” I mutter.
“And he means that respectfully,” Selly adds, nudging me with an elbow, glancing up pointedly at the temple, as if Barrica might overhear. In fairness, our goddess very well might.
Keegan points to the clawed marks in the ground, brushing at them with one finger. “I think these were made today,” he says. “The marks seem fresh, and we don’t know much about this place, but I imagine rain would have washed them away if they were older.”
Selly nods, lifting a finger to point at another of the bodies without touching it. “Judging by his clothes, he was a sailor. I think this is the crew of the boat we saw anchored in the cove. The question is: What did Laskia send them to do? And did they succeed before they died?”
Now we turn to look at the temple.
