Page 100 of A Tempest of Intrigue
The moonlight streaming through the colorful panes revealed some of the stone tables in the center of the room and the hundreds of shelves lining the walls. Rolled parchment filled every spare inch of those shelves.
Some parchments were spread out on a couple of the tables. A quill and ink sat next to them as the scholars worked to preserve the history of our realm by copying the older, more worn parchments onto the newer ones. I’d bet that history lacked the details of those gargoyles below.
The windows with the gargoyle images had a lot more meaning to me now. I wasn’t sure what that meaning was… yet. But then, I might never know.
Those gargoyles seemed to have been locked beneath the temple for millennia. Maybe the scholars, who the king appointed to keep the parchments safe, knew about them, but I doubted it.
It was a secret that would get out… or never kept. There were so many of them down there, but for what reason?
It was a question I couldn’t wait to ask Tucker, but I suspected he wouldn’t have an answer either.
“Do you know any of the scholars?” I asked Ryker as we strode toward the front door.
“No, but Tucker might.”
Ryker stopped before the large, curved black door. The chiseled designs of ivy running around the edge of the door gave it an almost mystical feel that made it seem as if a magical world lay beyond, or maybethiswas the magical world.
I hadn’t felt the same way before discovering the cavern, but I couldn’t shake the feeling now. But then, the only time I’d ever been here before, I’d been more focused on the endless parchments and all the history tucked within the building.
The scent of the ink and parchment captivated me as we made our way through the vast structure. My mother had brought all the kids from her school to visit the temple, but I’d forgotten about them as I traversed the rows of shelves.
I’d been awestruck and felt so small as I walked amid the stories of our ancestors and explored the different floors, though I’d never gone in the basement. Too scared to touch anything, I kept my hands at my sides.
The oldest known building in Tempest, the temple had been here for millennia and had seen countless other amsirah. I could almost feel their ghosts walking beside me while I explored the building for the first time.
It was only about a mile from The Hollows, but not many amsirah came here… outside the scholars. Tucker and his father were an oddity in that.
The hush hanging over the building was nearly palpable, and the click of the lock turning made me wince. Ryker hesitated before opening the door to reveal the steps leading to the hardpacked road and field surrounding the structure.
At the edge of the field was the shelter of the Revenant Woods, but we’d be completely exposed as we made our way toward the trees. Glancing around, I didn’t see anyone out there as the insects sang, but I felt eyes on me.
Those eyes didn’t come from the outside. The hair on my nape rose as my head turned toward the shadowed recesses of the temple.
I expected to come face-to-face with fangs, but only shadows greeted me. Yet there was something there, watching… waiting.
I had no idea what it was waiting for, but a heavy expectancy enshrouded the shadows and the mysteries they contained. When I stepped outside, Ryker closed the door behind me. I edged away from the eyes and secrets following us.
We descended the stone steps and were halfway across the field before I glanced back at the towering, black-stone temple. I could only see two of the four turrets and the gargoyles perched on them from my angle.
In the glow of moonlight, they were poised to take flight. And that flight would bring them straight to us.
“Ellery.”
Turning back, I discovered Ryker and Mouse standing before an open portal near the woods. I didn’t look back as I hurried away from the temple and through the portal.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
Ryker
We emergedfrom the portal and at the edge of the trees where I’d left Tucker and the others. The crowd remained the same as they waited for us to reemerge from the earth’s bowels.
When we came up from behind them, many jumped and edged back to let us pass.
“They’re alive,” someone breathed.
Others picked up the words and carried them to where Tucker stood with Ianto and Callan beneath the trees. Farley hovered over their shoulders.
Tucker still had a black eye from where the tree branch bashed him, but Ianto looked fine. The beating they’d endured from the trees earlier hadn’t dissuaded them from going out beneath them again as they stood in the area where I’d been taken.
