I did as Hytham ordered. I ran.

  Devrim had started a few paces ahead of me and was surprisingly swift for a man in a robe. Hytham kept pace beside me, the two of us gaining on the herald while the soldiers sprinted to keep up behind us.

  The low, rumbling scrape echoed down the enclosed corridor.

  Finally, I aligned the sound with its origin—a giant, rolling boulder, careening toward us. We’d set off an ancient Lifkin trap.

  One devised to expel strangers from their space.

  The thrum of the revolutions was slow at first, like a distant, half-remember drum beat. But it picked up speed with each turn over its axis as it progressed down the enclosed tunnels.

  I sprinted after the herald, wondering how long it would be before the boulder was upon us. The tunnel wound down, the route unchanging toward depths we could only guess at.

  “What do we do?” I shouted to Hytham who was keeping pace beside me. We drew even with the herald and the three of us ran side-by-side.

  Hytham shook his head. There was only thing we could do. Run.

  “It’s gaining!” one of the soldiers cried out behind us. The boulder had picked up more speed than we could ever have managed. The perfectly carved interior of the isla’s ramp provided it with no impediment.

  Please, I sent out to the ancients, we need a way out.

  I searched the runes along the passageway. We moved too quickly for me to read most of them. The few we passed offered nothing of immediate use, such as a route of escape.

  Sprinting away from a steadily rolling death-ball, I tried to remember any secrets I’d encountered in my study of the past. Winding ramps like this one weren’t uncommon in islas. The one we were in was likely used by a mix of soldiers, workers, and perhaps Hume. The upper classes of the isla would have used more open ramps—depending upon the isla’s purpose—so those winding about could be easily seen through decorative archways. We might have taken shelter in such a structural addition, had we been lucky enough for this isla to have them.

  One of the soldiers cried out as the boulder passed directly over our heads. He twisted his ankle, turning back to look over his shoulder.

  “No!” Hytham called out to me as I paused to look back as well. The man needed help—

  Hytham barred his arm behind me, his intent clear. We would not turn back. We would only run.

  The soldier resumed his sprint. We were a cacophony of metal and panting, fleeing our imminent demise.

  “Here it comes!” another called. He shouted the name of the soldier who had stopped, lagging a dozen paces behind the rest of us, his gait uneven from the twist in his ankle.

  “Waa-aahhhh!” the injured soldier screeched as the boulder caught up with and overwhelmed him.

  I winced at the crunch of bone.

  A deep red streak appeared across the boulder just as the end of the tunnel came into view. I cried out at the sight, but Hytham outstretched his arm behind me as though to block me from it. “Keep going,” he breathed through heavy exhales.

  A solid wall presented itself before us, and for a moment, my mind blanked. This was the end. We’d all of us be crushed by this rampaging boulder, set by ancient Lifkin who couldn’t have begun to imagine the world as it was now.

  But then I perceived an opening on either side of the wall. It was impossible to keep one’s bearings from within the winding tunnel, but my instincts pulled me toward the left to access the inner workings of the isla.

  Herald Devrim must have sensed the same.

  In the last moment before we had to make our decisions and choose which way we would tend before the boulder finally crushed us, the herald grabbed onto my wrist and tugged me after him as he leapt into the left-side hallway.

  Pe-euuu! The boulder crashed into the wall just behind us, sending rocks flying as it embedded itself into the wall.

  “Ahh!” a man screamed from the other side of the boulder, his voice oddly far away.

  I covered my head, waiting for the dust to settle. Tiny rocks plinked to the ground around me. A solid wall of smashed boulder blocked the way we’d come.

  With a groan, Herald Devrim pushed himself to his feet. We were the only two on this side of the boulder.

  The hiss of falling rock faded and he stepped forward, boots crunching on the stones, and held out his hand to me.

  I peered up at the herald through the dust. I had no idea if Hytham had made it on the other side.

  #

  I took the herald’s hand and began brushing off my breeches and shawl. The worst of the debris removed, I picked my way over the piles of rock, careful to avoid a fate similar to the man whose twisted ankle had brought about his death. I shuddered and pushed away the thought of the red streak across the boulder’s pale face.

  “Hytham?” I yelled, hoping he would be able to hear me through the piled rock of boulder and crushed wall.

  “-aeza—” emerged from the other side, muffled but there.

  I sighed and nodded to myself. He was alright enough to speak, and what little I could hear of his voice didn’t sound as though he was in pain. Had there been a sharp snap as the boulder reached us, like the sound of a broken bone? One of the soldiers had cried out just before we split ways across the hall.

  Hytham attempted to shout through the stone about his and the soldiers’ state, but the stone marred most of our communication.

  “Cranwin will see them to rights,” Devrim said, brushing dust from his hands and robes as he turned about to investigate our hallway. “He has some skills at least.”

  There was no mistaking the herald’s tone—he was as disenchanted with his new adjudicator as Hytham was with the suspicion that the herald had killed his predecessor. A matter for another time. For the moment, I saw little point in endeavoring to raise Hytham in the herald’s regard—I hoped my own performance within the isla might do that on Hytham’s behalf or at least help him prove useful enough that Devrim didn’t dispatch him as he had the last man who served as his protector.

  Hytham and the soldiers would have to find their own way out of the isla while the herald and I made ours.

  I looked over the towering man beside me, observing the herald through the corner of my eye as I adjusted my boots and tightened my shawl. Alone with the herald, even within the low, glowing lavender depths of the isla, that same sense of power radiated off of him like I’d sensed when he showed me how he could speed up travel across space.

  The herald waved me forward, and I watched my footsteps, choosing my path through the worst of the debris and straightening once I’d reached the herald’s side. Clearing the stone would take days, not to mention the possible dangers of trying to climb out the same tunnel only to trigger another trap and be smushed for sure.

  “We should continue on,” Devrim said, gesturing to the hallway that opened up before us. I nodded, falling into step beside him.

  This hallway brought together the architectural details we’d observed thus far. It looked as though the Lifkin had excavated it from the rock itself, polishing it smooth on the upper half of the wall above the embedded line of brilliant purple light. The lower half of the wall was rough-hewn rock. There were slight pathways worn into the floor from the passage of feet and, at the base of the walls, tiny trenches, a measure meant to mitigate the chance of flooding should there be a leak or bursting of the water-routes carved within the isla’s depths.

  “Have you ever been this deep inside an isla?” I asked Devrim, marveling at the skill of the ancients to have crafted such space from solid rock made, mysteriously, to float.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “A few times,” he answered, piquing my curiosity further.

  “I didn’t realize the Order took such interest in the Bright Age.”

  A flicker of movement tugged at the corner of the herald’s lips, too quickly for me to discern its meaning. “Most heralds specialize in their studies and efforts. For myself, the Bright Age holds a great deal of untapped potential.”

  I couldn’t help but agree with the herald. “I wish I could have brought more of Aveela’s records with me. She’s the spiritspeaker for my clan.” Loss clawed at my throat. I wasn’t yet ready to say that she was the spiritspeaker for my clan. That in her absence, I was the head spiritspeaker and no longer junior spiritspeaker. “There’s so much about the Bright Age we don’t know. I’m curious if it’s shown up in your research. How the islas floated?”

  Anyone familiar with the Bright Age and fascinated by islas would know the implied follow-up question—What had brought the islas down and brought about the darkening of our world, the press of clouds overhead, the deep chill? Most days I couldn’t decide which was more interesting or more pressing to understand—how the islas floated about or what caused the floating to cease.

  “Those are answers I seek as well,” the herald admitted, keeping an even pace as he continued down the hall.

  A few dark passages spoked off of our route, with a pile of rock quickly blocking the way of the first. The herald walked a few paces down the second, his lantern held aloft, but turned back, shaking his head. “Naught but mournlings to be found down there.”

  I shivered, imagining a horde of mournlings screeching out of the darkness, piling over one another to devour the life from Devrim and myself. My skin pricked as we left the passageway behind us—mournlings could be exceedingly quiet—but no shadows darkened our tracks.

  At the base of our passageway, there were two carved, closed doorways. “Bunkhouses for servants,” I read from the runes marking the arched doorway of the first. “And service passageways for the inner workings of the isla.”

  “We’ll try that way only if we must,” Devrim said, shaking his head.

  I frowned, looking from the herald to the sealed door.

  He continued on without specifying how we might open it. Almost imperceptibly, our path began to point upward again, lightening my mood. Runes grew more plentiful as did the archways.

  “What’s that?” I hurried past the herald toward a double-arched door ahead of us, peering up at the glowing runes. Unlike the doorways built into the side of the hallways, the hallway itself led onto this door, curving away again to the left and cutting a steeper trail up and within the center of the isla.

  “Archives,” I sighed, reading the runes aloud and grinning widely as I turned back to the herald.

  His gray gaze weighed upon me as he held out a large, rounded stone on the palm of his hand.

  “A keystone.” Devrim’s low voice rumbled within the close stone corridor. “I found in past journeys through islas that the ancient Lifkin had a fondness for enchanted doorways. This allows us to pass.”

  He held it out toward me.

  I hesitated. “Is there a reason you aren’t using it yourself?”

  That ghost of a knowing grin returned to Devrim’s jaw but didn’t haunt his eyes. “I cannot. The stone requires one of Lifkin heritage to wield it.”

  I extended my hands for the keystone. While Devrim could heft its weight all on his own, it was sizable enough to require two hands for me. As my skin brushed across the cold rock, it occurred to me that perhaps this was why Devrim had forced Bansaerin to lie on his behalf. He intended to use Bansaerin as the operator of the waystone. But if that were the case, why would he claim to be taking Bansaerin to Dust?

  I lifted the stone from Devrim’s grasp, and my questions fell away. Purple runes even brighter than the etchings along the wall and the runes over the doorway spiraled to life across the stone, revealing deep in-set patterns across its surface. Many of the patterns faded before I could read them, but a swirling band rather like the one that glowed from within the seed remained, pulsating softly and casting shifting shadows across the rest of the chamber.

  The double-arched doors of the archive answered. An identical twisting band swirled to life upon the doors and within the carved doorframe. I gasped, not having expected the door to answer the stone’s call.

  “Very good,” Devrim murmured. “Your next task is to will the stone to allow us inside.”

  I frowned at the herald. “There’s not a spell of opening or something like that?”

  He shook his head. “I’m sure that there is, but you do not need it. Focus on your desire, and channel that desire into the stone. It will see that the door answers.”

  My pulse quickened as I stepped forward, holding the stone out at waist level. It was one of the first magic lessons I’d had since I was a child, since my mother passed. I didn’t count my spiritspeaker lessons with Aveela. The ancients’ magic was even more rare than the one or two spiritspeakers in each clan, and the mages from within our clan had perished in the Night of One Thousand Fires, all save me and Iredella.

  After the soldiers took her, I was the only one left.

  I stared down at the stone in my hands, letting my gaze sink into the brilliant purple glow. We need to find our way through, I thought to the stone.

  The thick doors before me made no sound.

  Harness your will, I repeated to myself.

  I turned my attention to the doors before me, studying their glowing runes, picturing the stacks of ancient, magical tomes hidden inside. What might the ancient Lifkin records reveal? What questions might they answer about the past?

  The stone warmed in my hands, and I channeled a single word into the waystone. Open.

  With a low, grumbling scrape, the doors before me began to slide open.

  “It’s working!” I spun back to Devrim.

  Rather than mirroring my smile, his gaze only sharpened, homed in on the archives before us.

  I first realized something was wrong as I watched the herald, whose expression darkened.

  I turned back to the chamber, and my grin faded. So much for the drains.

  Something had released a torrent of water across the archives, our sight of the cause blocked by the shelves immediately inside the chamber and the archway. The magical doors had sealed the flood inside.

  Puddles of water marred the sanded stones of the archive floors. As the doors opened, the puddle nearest the door began to empty, soaking the hall before our feet and running down the gently sloping ramp we’d been climbing. There was enough water that it filled the trough on the side of the hallway and dampened the ramp as well.

  I strode forward but stopped abruptly as Devrim seized the back of my shawl.

  “Wait,” he commanded. With his free hand, the herald gestured to the runes upon the doorframe. “Remember the trap in the entry tunnel. Even with a keystone, you must check the runes for a trap before trespassing.”

  “Do they always declare a trap?” I asked, interpreting the runes as quickly as I could. They spoke of the sacred nature of knowledge and honorable service to the empress—I was right about the isla’s purpose—but there was no mention of who could pass into the archives.

  “No,” Devrim answered, his tone tightening the knotted tendrils curled in my stomach. “But there is no sense in barging into their spaces without caution, however promising the treasure waiting on the other side.”

  The note of care in Devrim’s voice caught me by surprise. It reminded me of the conversation we’d had while he showed me what rapid travel was like, when he’d declared that the prejudice of the Hume wasn’t based on history but on scarcity instead. He wasn’t talking about treasure like the isla raiders who desecrated ancient sites searching for magical artifacts and gems.

  He was talking about the shelves full of books waiting for us inside.

  “Go ahead,” Devrim said.

  I didn’t need any further permission.

  Low pools of stagnant water splashed beneath my boots as I hurried into the archives. Row upon row of tomes rose twenty feet into the air, the sweeping heights of the chamber another two stories above the shelves.

  I hurried around the corner of the first bookshelf and stopped. It was immediately apparent that the ambition of the chamber had also led to its ruin. “Oh,” I sighed.

  Devrim grumbled just behind me.

  The far side of the archives’ roof had caved in, filling the chamber with water and decimating most of the shelves.

  With shaking hands, I returned to the first bookshelf nearest the entrance, searching the tomes for one unmarred by the damp and the cold. The first three leather volumes I seized began to disintegrate in my hands. The binding flaked onto my fingers, and the pages had clumped against one another, the ink smearing from the moisture in the air.

  “Call out if you find anything,” Devrim ordered from the other side of the shelf. Thousands of books in the archives, a smashed shelf of scrolls, and we were limited to a few dozen volumes that might have been spared the isla’s fall and subsequent fading into ruins.

  The plink of dripping water emphasized the urgency of our search. Not only did we need to find our way out of the isla before Hytham sent a search party after us—or we sent one after Hytham—but the water damage was so great that the chance of finding an undamaged tome grew slighter by the day.

  Against all odds, I found one.

  I’d cast at least a dozen aside, stacking them upon a side table in case they might be able to be salvaged later. I’d read a few accounts of similar magical workings, the restoration of a destroyed text, but I had never met someone who wielded that sort of biblio-magic.

  The tome had been set more deeply into the shelf than the others, protected by its fellows and those on the shelf above. Spiritus, Naturally, the spine read.

  I opened the cover, unsure of what I would find.

  I inhaled sharply at the clarity of the ink on the first page. Alapatour Renthea, I read quickly, skimming the author’s biography to learn his role as a scholar during the Bright Age.

  Could he have been the same alapatour whose spirit I’d met when I found the isla years before? In my studies with Aveela, I’d learned that ‘alapatour’ was a title for advanced scholars, not a name like I’d first understood it to be.

  I flipped through the pages, my excitement growing as I found them intact. Near the beginning of the book, the alapatour had written a letter to his readers, expressing his desire to intervene into the greatest debate of their age—Should the Lifkin heed the cries of the compassionate among them and limit the use of spirit magic or was it their birthright, something they should continue to wield if not even increase their prowess with?

  “What is that you’ve found?”

  I jumped at the suddenness of Devrim’s presence behind me, reading over my shoulder. For such a large Hume, he traversed damp stone floors with impressive stealth.

  “A-a book that wasn’t ruined by the water.” My grip tightened on the leather bindings, gaze taking in as much of the elegant scrawl upon parchment pages as I could.

  “May I?” Devrim said—his tone was utterly without the delicacy of a question.

  I turned to the back of the book and found a final note, written by hand. The Empress has recalled us to the summit where we shall make our last stand, if this isla can get us there.

  Behind me, Devrim cleared his throat and held out his hand. “We should keep moving.”

  Reluctantly, I turned toward the herald and deposited the text into his large hand. What was a hefty tone in my grasp seemed a relatively simple volume in his.

  “I’ll hold onto this,” he said as he tucked the volume into his robes. “Come. What we’re searching for lies further on.”