Page 112 of Incoronate
“Smoke means fire,” said Trace. “Fire means someone lit it.”
“A stunning deduction, Romeo,” said Dominic, without inflection.
“Well? What are we waiting for?” asked Trace as he started walking backwards from me toward and in the direction of the structure. “Let’s go check it out.”
I didn’t move. “Is that a good idea?”
He halted, frowning at me. “What do you mean? We’ve been walking for over an hour looking for any sign of life. That’s definitely a sign of life.”
“Yeah, but what kind of life?” I swallowed against the knot in my throat as I looked between them. “If there’s anything actually alive in this Realm, I think we can all pretty much guess what it’s going to be.”
“Revenants.” Dominic’s eyes darkened.
“Exactly.” My stomach tightened uncomfortably. “What if they’re ferals?” I asked, the thought already burrowing into me and growing roots.
A structure would certainly provide shelter, but shelter would also draw the desperate. And feral vampires were nothing if not desperate.
“It’s possible,” conceded Dominic. “Though the presence of a sustained fire suggests coordination.”
That gave me pause. Ferals were violent. Instinct-driven. Not exactly known for long-term planning.
“There’s only one way to find out,” said Trace, his gaze bouncing between me and Dominic. “Whatever’s in there, we can handle it. It’s not like we’re unarmed,” he said, shifting the wooden stake at his back.
He wasn’t wrong. All three of us were armed. They had the wooden stakes I’d pulled from their chests, and I had the Sword of Angelus tucked neatly against my ribs. Still, the idea of walking toward unknown inhabitants in a Realm like this made my skin prickle.
“He’s right, angel.” Dominic turned his gaze to me, measuring. “We do require shelter,” he reminded evenly. “And information. Wandering indefinitely through open terrain benefits no one.”
Trace nodded once. “We approach carefully. If it’s bad, we leave.”
If it’s bad.
As if leaving were that simple.
“It’s your call,” said Trace as the two of them watched me.
I looked back at the structure in the distance. The haze shifted across it, briefly clarifying its outline before swallowing it again, and for just a moment I could make out the suggestion of walls. A roofline. Something thin and dark curling upward from it into that relentless red sky. It was definitely smoke.
I stared at it for a long moment and thought about all the things that lit fires, and whether any of them were things I wanted to walk toward voluntarily. Hope and danger looked dangerously similar from a distance.
“All right,” I said finally, forcing the tightness from my voice. “Let’s find out who else survived,” I said and then jabbed my index finger at the two of them. “But ifsomething tries to eat me, I’m holding both of you personally responsible.”
* * *
It took twenty minutes to close the distance, and with every step the structure became harder to look away from. We watched as it shifted in and out of focus, the haze thinning and thickening in uneven waves, revealing more of itself with every step we took. The closer we got, the more we were sure that what we were seeing wasn’t some trick of the eye or a mirage conjured by this barren wasteland.
It was definitely man-made.
Up close, it was nothing like anything I had ever seen built. Not in the way buildings were built in our world, with symmetry and purpose and materials meant to last against weather and time. This looked assembled. Salvaged. As though someone had scavenged whatever Sanguinarium had to offer and forced it into submission.
The walls were constructed from something dark and glassy, almost like volcanic obsidian cut and stacked in uneven slabs, its surface catching the red light with a cold, liquid sheen that almost made it look alive. Certain sections had been cut and fitted with obvious effort, others appeared to have been shaped by heat, the edges softened and fused where the material had been forced into place.
It was the tallest structure in view, but it didn’t stand alone. As we crested the slight incline leading toward it, an entire settlement revealed itself in stages. A dozen structures at least, smaller than the central one but built in the same desperate, resourceful manner, connected by low perimeter walls of stacked red stone and more of that black, glassy material that formed a rough perimeter around the settlement. Everything looked reinforced and intentional. Thekind of intentional that only came from people who had been here long enough to stop thinking of it as temporary and to start making it their home.
And there was sound too. Movement. Chatter. The low buzz of a place that had learned to function.
“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” I murmured, my steps slowing without my permission.
“Probably not,” agreed Dominic, his tone and expression undecipherable.
