The words hung in the air, and my magic thrummed in my veins.
“It seems to me that we’re hoping for a lot of things.” Maiela spoke slowly as though each word pained her. “For Daegal and Ryllae to be alive, for this river to be made of water and not fire, for us to make it in time.” She raised weary eyes, and my heart nearly shattered at the depth of pain hiding within them. “What will happen when that hope runs out?”
That was a great question.
Kysha sighed, drawing her wife in for a hug. “We’ll keep going,” she said. “We always do. Right now, we’re alive, and we’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
That was wise.
“You’re right,” I said. “We’ll keep going forward. That’s all we can do.”
Stepping back, I withdrew the compass from my pocket. I held my breath as the needle spun three times before stopping, pointing toward the other end of the city. “Kysha’s right. The best thing we can do is get out of here.”
Xander laced his fingers through mine, and without a backwards glance, we walked once more.
* * *
Even my dragonshifter’s presence couldn’t dispel the sense of wrongness that permeated this somber, dead place. The mountain seemed darker than it had when we arrived, the light from the glowing mushrooms doing barely anything to the gloomy space. My magic thrummed in my veins, but the earth was quiet as we walked.
Today, everything seemed frustratingly hard. Once we got going, speaking felt like a chore. Even the simple task of carrying my pack was significantly harder than it should have been. Soon, my feet hurt and the nausea that had been plaguing me on and off for a few days returned with a vengeance.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that this place was haunted. Wind blew and doors swung open, creaking on ancient hinges, giving us glimpses into the empty abodes as we moved through what must have once been a residential area. Remnants of life were all around. Garden beds lay empty; kitchen counters were bare; even the occasional child’s toy remained untouched, lying on the ground.
This was a place that should have been alive with laughter and conversation and joy, but it was a graveyard.
As we left from the city center, the houses were less crammed together. The cavernous roof was lower now, and our footsteps were the only sounds as we walked toward the darkness.
A few hours into our trek, we stumbled across an empty stone field that had strange goalposts on either end.
Xander ran his hand down one of them longingly.
“What is it?” I asked.
He smiled softly. “It’s a sports field,” he said. “This looks like the one we used to have at home. Before…”
His voice trailed off, and his sadness filled his eyes. He didn’t need to fill in the blanks. I knew what “before” meant. Before he lost his home, his family, his childhood. Before his life was turned upside down.
Before.
“What is the game?” I hoped my question would distract him from the memory of his burned village.
His golden eyes lit up. “I’ve heard it go by many names, but in my village, we called it No Feet.”
My brows furrowed. “No Feet?”
“You had to get the ball from your opponents and carry it to the other side without letting it touch your feet.” He grinned. “We spent hours playing No Feet when we were young.”
Xander took my arm, and as he led me away from the field, he told me more about this game. I listened intently, fascinated by the entire concept.
Games had not been a part of my childhood. When I was younger in my tower, I saw children playing together. They always seemed so happy, their shrieks of joy nothing like the cries that left my mouth when the Crimson King decided to play with his pet.
We passed another empty home, and I shuddered.
Any joy that might have existed here was long gone. Now, the ghosts of the children’s laughter were nearly as heavy as the darkness that hung over the four of us as we walked. High King Edgar would have loved this city. He would have found great, twisted joy in the death and darkness lurking in the shadows of this hidden city.
I shivered, drawing my cloak around myself.
He’s dead. You’re not.