Chapter 39

  The golden temple stood as before—only not. The walls seemed to breathe. Wardlight ran like honey along the seams, pulsing back when his heartbeat stumbled. With each step, his muscles twitched, a thin shiver of readiness he couldn’t tell wether was fear or invitation.

  Kamir took his left shoulder, Myra the right. Two small anchors. They climbed. The familiar thud of his boots on stone came back to him twice—once from the stairs, once from somewhere under the temple’s skin.

  The throne room received them in its old blaze. The throne’s glow tilted toward him, quiet, like a head turning.

  His legs moved on instinct. Will bent. Before he could think to resist, his palm met the cool surface of the throne. Pressure hit—like an ocean dropped on a chest. His mind buckled and he went to one knee, clawing for breath—and then the weight burned off, quick as clouds in high sun.

  River lifted his head.

  The room was gone.

  He stood on a mountain shouldering into open sky, the world below smothered in cloud. The air was thin and knife-cold; it tasted clean, like metal and snow. The horizon ran in a perfect circle. Far off, something boomed—slow thunder, or a glacier moving. He couldn’t tell. He was alone. Kamir, Myra, even the warm press of Calira had vanished.

  A voice rang out—not quite human. Too many edges, too much depth. It came from everywhere: from the rock under his soles, from the long blue above, from the space inside his ribcage.

  “RIVER.”

  His name arrived as a shape rather than a sound, and the shape fit him uncomfortably well.

  “Bearer of magic. The first soul bonded in ages. The last hope of the pantheon.”

  He swallowed. “Y-yes.”

  The wind worried his tunic, flapping it like a flag. He reached for words and found none.

  “I do not come to humans lightly,” he said. “It breaks our rules. And yet today it is necessary.” He stood close enough that River could see the light moving under his skin, and somehow River knew him, even as the face felt like a stranger’s.

  It was Sylas. The leader of the Pantheon. The first Primordial.

  Silence pressed in—then the scrape of stone far below, like a giant turning over in its sleep.

  “ORDER. JUDGMENT. SALVATION,” the voice intoned, and the air tightened around each name. “YOU HAVE FELT THEIR OPPRESSION.”

  “I have.”

  “Travel to the untouched lands. Find those who will fight by your side. Climb the tower and prove yourself.”

  River’s mouth opened, but confusion tripped the words before they formed.

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  “Your kingdom, weakened by the presence of the three, was cut off long ago, by those who feared their return. They were right to do so.”

  The sky thinned; the cloud-sea parted in neat sheets. The mountain seemed to lean in—not with stone, but with intent.

  “No riddles,” the Sylas continued, quieter now, direct. “Listen, River of Varosha. Cross the dry marches beyond the salt flats. Seek the settlements that call themselves the children of war—those who barred their gates to temples and to crowns alike. There you will find your first companion, your first general in the war to come.”

  Sylas pressed his hand on River’s brow; a band of light, thin as a wire, settled into the skin of his brow. Cooling into a mark he didn’t recognize. It pulsed once in time with his heart.

  “There are those who will hunt you for that mark; you must act in the shadows. Far from these lands.”

  “When?” he managed.

  “NOW.”

  The mountain, the sky, the clean knife-cold—folded in on him. Gold rushed back in. He was in the throne room again, one knee down, palm flat to the cool metal. Breath came hard.

  For a second he didn’t move, strength slow to return while his mind still reeled. Calira’s voice echoed as he fought to pull enough air into his lungs.

  “What happened? For a second you were gone.” Panic laced her words.

  “God. Mission. Children of War.”

  Images, and the weight behind them, spilled through their bond; Calira understood.

  The steps seemed to have lengthened since he came in, his knees buckling as he stumbled down them. Kamir and Myra met him at the bottom.

  “Well?” Kamir asked.

  “I’m leaving,” River said, voice rough. “Untouched Lands. I have to find allies.”

  They nodded; no surprise crossed their faces—they had already suspected this outcome.

  Calira flared warm in his chest—go—and the word settled like a coin on his tongue. He rose. The temple’s doors sighed open to the noon glare, and Varosha’s heat hit him full-on. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t. He stepped into the light and started toward the desert.

  -

  Everything moved quickly once Sylas’s command was given. Kamir—devout as bedrock—was never going to question his god’s wisdom.

  Sand took him first. The mark on River’s forehead pulsed like a second heartbeat, feeding him scraps of memory he’d never lived: dry riverbeds that still knew how to flow, dunes shaped like sleeping beasts, a line of black rock pointing north. He knew where to go even as he struggled to understand how. The mark was a map worn on the inside.

  Day three—heat hammered at noon. He learned the dunes’ hard backs, the ripple-lines the wind wrote, how to keep grit from flaying his heels. Water went warm by afternoon; he rationed sips by shadow length. Calira flew ahead and back, a dark stitch on white sand.

  Day six—the land sloped, the wind cooled. Salt flats gave way to gravel and thorn. He let the veil rest; since the merge, every working left a film of cold on his fingers. He saved warmth for night.

  Day nine—foothills. The trail steepened and the air thinned. Frost webbed the grass before dawn; by noon, rime clung to rock. His shirt came apart at the seams; he bound it with cord and kept moving.

  Day twenty—the snowline, then pines. Smoke on the wind once, far off—gone before he found the source. The path widened into a scar of old road.

  Weeks bled into months. One, then two. Hope never vanished—just a weight he shouldered each morning like his pack. Animals began to appear: once a fox trotted beside him for an hour; once a hot spring chattered with fish. Small mercies made it easier.

  At the crown of the ridge, the wind knifed sideways, tearing at the scraps of cloth that still clung to him. The mark tugged his eyes downslope. Through it, stone paths resolved, torches punching holes in the snow.

  “If this place disappoints us,” Calira said, venom dry as ash, “I’m roasting something just to feel alive.”

  The snow gave to stone. Ahead, a weather-chewed sign leaned over the road, letters carved deep:

  THE CHILDREN OF WAR. STRENGTH.

  Bed. Wash. Then find his ally. He had no idea where to start.

  He stood there with sand in his teeth and snow still crusted on his boots, clothes in ribbons, hope worn thin, and still somehow present. Calira hummed—low, wary. “So,” she said, and the sound was almost a smile, “we found them.”

  “Yeah,” he answered, and the mark warmed his brow like a small sun. “We did.”