Page 19 of Wolf of Ashes
“Where are they?” I ask, and quickly add, “Maybe those powerful creatures killed them?”
The keeper proceeds at a slow pace ahead of me along the corridor. He shakes his head. “The angels are here. Somewhere…”
His ears take on the shape of a wolf’s while his nose elongates and thickens like a bear’s. “I can hear and smell them.” He growls before his features return to their humanoid shape. “There’s a legion outside this building. I hear the clanking of metal and scraping of soil.”
I shudder. At the peak of my abilities, I should be able to sense what he can sense. The fact that I can’t tells me I’m in bad shape.
He proceeds cautiously through the room, checking our surroundings as he moves.
My only concern is for us to find the way out.
Well, that is, until another scent fills my chest.
Food.
Mindless with the need for sustenance, I veer in the direction of the mouthwatering smells. I don’t know what kind of food it might be—it doesn’t smell so bland as anything I’ve eaten. It must be something with layers of flavor, given the variety of combined scents wafting my way.
The keeper’s hand snakes around my forearm before I can move away from him. “How badly do you want to eat?” he asks, indicating that he too, can smell the food. But of course he can.
“Badly.” Although in many respects, it’s my thirst that matters more. My stomach tightens painfully at the promise of food. “Enough to saypleasea hundred times.”
“Very well,” he replies. “I think it’s safe enough for us to take a detour through this broken place and deal with its inhabitants when we need to.”
I’m practically running when he leads me to the left, a final burst of energy pushing me onward on the trail of the delicious scents.
We enter another room, this one with a glass ceiling that’s shattered. Sharp pieces litter the floor all around the room. Again, the far walls are charred as if a fire burned across them.
But what stops me in my tracks is the darkness above us.
A twinkling darkness.
One of the few things that could take priority over food.
I want to see it better, and my hands rise to my face to remove my makeshift blindfold, but I remind myself that even the soft lighting could cause me pain, so I stop myself.
“The sky,” I whisper, trying to see it through the weave, all the way up there. “Is that the night sky?”
The keeper pauses ahead of me, tipping his head back briefly, before he surprises me by reaching for my face and urging me to look at him instead of up through the broken ceiling.
“The light in this room obscures the night sky’s beauty,” he says. “Do not look upon it here. I will show you the beautiful darkness when the time is right.”
Beautiful darkness.
My focus is now on the keeper’s features, the streaming shifts of color through his eyes, one moment luminescent, the next so black that I feel like I’m falling into an abyss.
I struggle to tear my eyes away.
Then the scent of food breaks through again, and my hunger prevails.
I tug in that direction, but the keeper’s hold on me tightens.
“What is it?” I ask.
He inclines his head at the patterned glass that litters the floor. “I know that glass. I’ve seen it in the memories of dark creatures who tried to invade this place and never got closer than the outside walls. I know where we are now.”
The pain in my stomach makes me reckless. “Okay, well, unlike them, we’re already inside, and there’s food—”
“No,” he says. “This is a place called ‘the Cathedral.’ We can’t stay here.”
