Chapter 2

“Anything turn up with the book?” Zerua set a basket of unearthed artifacts down on the table beside him with a smile.

He glanced up at her and returned to his reading. “The translation is slow going. Some of the words are proving difficult. The writer uses the words svaemel and bodashel interchangeably in places, and I’m still trying to place the words.” He brandished the journal. “But, I’m almost positive about the identity of the writer now!”

“Really?” Zerua craned her neck to get a peek of the book.

“It’s Queen Banach’s diary. She refers to Rith as her husband, and she speaks of raising an army with him. Who else could it be?” Kaidan graced her with a bright smile. “This could be a major break through in our understanding of the Rithians’ side of the conflict. She’s already offered some great insight into what caused the war.”

Zerua raised a brow. “Has she?”

“Yes!” Kaidan had to resist the urge to leap from his spot and pace. “She says that Rith saved her from Sedra’s wrath back when she was one of the six and was a failing part of Sedra’s great experiment.”

“Experiment?”

“Oh, right... That’s another part we’ll have to check into. She claims that Sedra wasn’t a goddess at all but was instead a being from another world who played the part of a god and created them. But she didn’t do it for good purposes. She was experimenting on them for reasons Queen Banach never understood.”

His wife cocked her head to the side, both brows rising. “Are you certain? Maybe you just translated it wrong. That’s clear blasphemy. If you listen to the Church of Sedra, that is...”

He bit his lip. “I know that, and I know what will happen if this is true. So, yes, I’m certain. I triple checked. She spells it out clearly. In that first entry we started reading, she explains that Sedra bound souls to each of them to give them life and power.” He waved the book at her again. “If this is true...” His lips pressed together in a thin line, and he shook his head.

“If this is true,” she finished. “Then everything we’ve believed our entire lives is a lie.”

He nodded.

“We can’t let anyone know about this until we’re certain that what this diary says is true.” She knelt beside him, staring down at the blood-stained pages. “If we put this in the public eye without any proof that it’s true, we’ll be in a world of trouble.”

“Love, if we publish our findings on this at all, we’re going to be branded heretics and laughed out of every scholarly circle.”

She looked up at him and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Kaidan, we’ve devoted our entire lives to the pursuit of the truth. That’s why we’re here today even though people claimed the myth was a lie and wouldn’t produce any evidence.” She tapped a knuckle against the book. “Something is going on here, and we have to find the truth.”

He sighed, staring at the damning words on the page. “I know. I just wish I could know ahead of time what we’ll get ourselves into while searching out the truth on this one. This won’t be like our usual digs where everything we’re after is long dead, Zerua.”

“What makes you say that?”

He shot her a glance and opened the book to the last page. “Because of this.”

The last page had been written in a shaking hand as if the writer was now feeble or rushed. The ink had blotted the page in a few areas, blurring some of the words. Zerua frowned and pointed at it. “You know I don’t read the older forms of Wyrdhan.”

Kaidan raised a brow. “Zer, it’s not that different from modern Wyrdhan. It just switches the endings around a bit for the nouns. That’s pretty much it.”

“Either way, I’m too worn out to figure this out. What does it say?”

He cleared his throat and took the diary back, running his finger beneath the text as he read. “Tomorrow it will be done. They will never be able to touch the scrolls that prove the truth of this book’s contents. The scrolls are safely hidden in a place where even the strongest will be brought to the ground by my curse.”

“How does that prove we’re not digging for things that are long dead?” Zerua settled her hands on her hips.

“It ends with one last warning. ’To those who would find the scrolls, you must seek the truth with pure intent and justice in your hearts. If you do not, you too will fall to the bane of Ashkarith.

'Someday, someone will uncover the truth and will preserve it until the day when the Son of Shadows comes. I foresaw that someone would find the truth, but before this can happen, the spirits that she has wronged must be laid to rest.” He lifted his head. “Zer, I don’t think Queen Banach, Bane of Ashkarith, ever moved on. And this seems to indicate that those souls Sedra supposedly murdered in their war never did either.”

The blood drained from Zerua’s face, and her lips moved in a soundless prayer for Albrith’s protection. “So, if we go after this, we have no guarantee we’ll make it out alive, and we’re dealing with a possible haunting.”

Kaidan nodded, his fingers shaking against the wood of the low table he’d spread his translation work onto.

“Are we really prepared to take that chance?” Zerua chewed on her lower lip, looking at the book with a sharp intake of breath. “Take the chance with our lives and those of others?”

“We won’t be taking anyone else for this one, Zer. We can’t.” Kaidan cleared his throat when she shot him a wide-eyed glance. “If what that says is true, who knows if we’ll make it out, and we know anyone we hire won’t if they’re not there for the same reasons we are.”

“But we can’t just go without help or backup, Kaidan!” She threw her hands up. “That’s the same as asking to die!”

He scrambled to his feet and wrapped her up in his arms. “Listen... I know that. But we can’t let this go without investigating, and if the evidence is out there, we have to find it. If this is true, all of us have been lied to for centuries of history.” He held her back at arms’ length. “Zer, I can’t let that go. Not if there’s even a remote chance. So, I have to go.”

Her shoulders slumped, and she bit her nails. Kaidan took her hands in his, stopping her from chewing them to stubs. “Hey, it’ll be fine. We’re going to go, and we’re going to come back with the truth, Zerua.”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “Alright. You’re right... The part about dying shook me up, but we do have to know what really happened.” She pulled out of his grip and snatched up the basket she’d come with. “I’ll keep working with the others on the dig while you work out where we’re supposed to go.”

“I have my guesses, but I’ll need to search into the lore more closely to determine what she’s talking about when she says ‘the place where even the strongest will be brought to the ground by my curse’.” Kaidan settled back into his place by the translation work, shifting on the grassy ground. “Then there’s the matter of the rest of the book, which seems to be a collection of prophecy of some sort based on the sentence case she uses.”

“The sentence case?”

Kaidan nodded. “Back in the time period this came from, there was a prophecy case that was supposedly only usable by an individual if they’d received divine revelation. But people mimicked it all the time. That’s how the cult of Ishtral started.”

Zerua laughed. “I’ll leave you to it then. If I don’t leave to go work with the others, I’ll be in here all day listening to you.”

He rolled his eyes, still focused on the papers strewn over his work surface. “I doubt that. You have more self-control when it comes to this stuff than I do.”

She snickered and padded to the tent’s entrance. “Well, someone has to keep your head out of the clouds when people need you here on Alcardia, darling.”

He snorted and waved her away. “If you say so.”

The tent flap rustled, and she left him to his work with one parting quip. “You know I’m right, dear.”

***

Night fell all too soon, and the dig was coming to a close for the day when Kaidan finally pieced together all the clues to determine the location where Banach had hidden the scrolls the journal spoke of. He jotted down the location, his heart thumping against his ribcage, and then sat back, staring at it in disbelief.

The voice of his wife and the workers’ headman drew closer, and he listened to her talking to the man. “Respect is important to everyone in this situation, I know. So, since we’ve proven what we came to prove, we’ll be finishing up with the dig tomorrow.”

“Much appreciated, ma’am. I’ll inform the workers.”

“See that they’re careful when they rebury the remains, please.” His wife pulled aside the flap and ducked inside the tent as she spoke.

“Understood, ma’am. They’ll be told to take care.” The headman glanced inside the tent. “Evening, Master Kaidan.”

Kaidan smiled at the man. “Good evening, Leotwo.”

The man’s gaze wandered around the inside of the tent. Then he returned Kaidan’s smile and ducked his head. “Well, I’ll take my leave for the evening, then.”

The two of them bid him farewell, but Kaidan’s attention was only partially on the headman and the current situation. His wife sat down on the mat beside him, tracing her fingers down his spine. “What have you found?”

“The location.” He crumpled the paper in his fist.

“And?”

“You’re right... It is a suicide mission.”

“But where do we have to go?” She began massaging the knots out of his shoulders.

He closed his eyes, groaning when she hit a sensitive spot between his shoulder blades. “Ashkarith. We have to go to Ashkarith.”

“Ashkarith?” His wife’s hands stilled against his back. “No one even knows for sure if the city still exists, though.”

Kaidan sucked in a deep breath. “I know...”

“The jungle supposedly reclaimed it, Kaidan. How are we going to find that?”

Kaidan shrugged. “No one will trek in there, and the captains of those new-fangled flying ships refuse to fly over the spot. They say it’s cursed.”

“That doesn’t answer how we’ll find it. That just means we’re going alone.” She resumed kneading knots from his stiff muscles.

“I know. We’re going to go to the village of Faeridhia. It’s the closest to the former city’s location, and if anyone knows whether or not the city survived the jungle and where to find it, it’ll be the natives.” He slumped over the table to give his wife better access to his back and the sore muscles.

“But that’s still deep in the jungle. No one will fly us there.”

“True, but we might be able to find someone to lead us there.” Kaidan sighed as his wife’s nimble fingers removed the aches and tension in his back.

“Kaidan, you know what’s said about the people in Faeridhia.” Zerua wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his back.

Kaidan snickered. “Come bearing gifts unless you want to be eaten alive?”

She smacked his side lightly. “You know that’s not what they say.”

Kaidan sat up and drew her into his arms, stretching out on the mat with her beside him. “I know, I know. They’re unpredictable and vicious.”

“That doesn’t concern you?” She traced his cheekbones with her fingertips.

“We’ll find a way, Zer. There’s no other choice.”

“We’re going to get ourselves killed.” She bit her lip.

Kaidan leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to the tip of her nose. “What better way to die than in pursuit of truth?”

She rolled her eyes, but his words drew a smile from her. “Perhaps of old age in your sleep?”

Kaidan brushed his lips over hers with a smile. “Boring.”

Her lips flirted with his own, and her breathy laughter greeted his comment. “I thought the same.”

“So, it’s settled? We’re going to go after this thing?”

She nodded, her smile fading. “I don’t see another option. We can’t just let this go. Now that we’ve dug up this, we’ve got to find out if it’s true. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to believe that wrong is right and truth is untruth for the rest of my life.”

His gaze dropped to the small space between them. “Neither do I.”

“Then we’ll set out for Ashkarith as soon as we finish up here.” She tangled her fingers in his hair. “But for now, let’s take an opportunity to rest. I have a feeling we won’t be doing much of that in the near future.”

Kaidan gathered her closer to him. She’s right. Whatever we find in that jungle is going to turn our world upside down, and I don’t think either of us will have a chance to rest easy once we find out the truth. He closed his eyes with a sigh. The journal’s already disturbing enough. His mind drifted as the lack of sleep for the last few months caught up with him. Ashkarith. City of the dead. What will we find there? His breathing slowed, and after a few more minutes, he was out.