“What do you think about Medina, now that you’ve seen her again?” I asked.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know. I won’t question her loyalty to the empire, obviously. She’s solid. But she might be misguided, where Trap is concerned. Seriously, I think someone framed him. Maybe the cult did it, knowing he was an ally.”
“The emperor is an ally, too,” I replied.
“Yeah, but he’s not as accessible, if you think about it. Especially after what happened here,” Eira said. “I think Medina doesn’t have all the information, and, given the heap of trouble we’re dealing with, she doesn’t want to worry about Trap, too.”
“That’s kind of reasonable.”
“Yeah, but where does it leave Trap?” Eira replied, her shoulders dropping.
Once more, I found myself in awe of her. What a devoted friend she could be. So just and trusting, so kind and eager to help out. I worried about her more than she, herself, worried about Trap. I feared her presence here might do her harm, that it would put Acquis at risk, too—though I didn’t know what he’d been up to lately. I dared not think too far where he was concerned, given that he and Inalia were stuck with the brutally loyal Leb and Sebbi. Cerix was in turmoil beneath its pretty surface.
And Eira was indirectly tied to it all. I wanted to help her with Trap, but I feared we might come across the cult at the most inopportune of moments. We had to tread carefully in this world, because we were one step closer to foiling Brendel’s plan for the ritual. There would be casualties, soon enough, and I dreaded the thought of Eira being counted among them.
However, I couldn’t ignore her plea or ardent need to help her friend. She needed me, and I needed her. We’d have to figure something out to get what we wanted out of this place, without jeopardizing the key mission. To me, that was quite the challenge, but it was worth it.
You don’t abandon your friends. Not when they might need you the most.
“We’ve handled worse, haven’t we?” I asked rhetorically.
A smile tugged at her lips. “And we survived, too.”
“Right? Think we won’t survive this?”
She thought about it for a moment and looked at me in a way that made my throat close up. I’d never seen such intensity in her eyes before. “With you by my side, there’s nothing I won’t survive,” she said, her voice breaking.
Her words had a paralyzing impact on me, and she didn’t even know it. Instinctively, I reached out and pulled her into my arms. I held her close, my chin resting on the top of her head, as she gradually relaxed in my embrace. It felt so good to have her heart within inches of mine, thudding nervously between layers of fabric, skin, flesh, and bone… It was as if our souls resonated when in close proximity with each other, like hidden musical notes that chimed softly whenever we touched.
I understood then that Eira was a bigger part of my life than I’d initially thought. And it wasn’t a bad thing at all.
Riza
Medina welcomed us into the meeting hall with an organized pile of Cerixian maps on the main table. Water pitchers, light snacks, and blood vials had been set up on a side table, courtesy of the emperor. The room itself was beautiful, with ornate wall panels and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves loaded with leather-bound books and journals. Plenty of chairs and sofas had been arranged by the window, to get the most out of the natural light while reading, and light fixtures offered artificial lighting after sunset.
“Thank you for the refreshments,” Taeral said to Medina, who offered a curt bow in return.
“It’s the least we could do for our guests,” she replied, and unraveled a large map on the empty half of the main table. “This is the most recent and most accurate map of Cerix, complete with monuments and protected ancient sites.”
“It’s nice to see you take care of them,” Amelia said as we gathered around the table. She bent forward to get a better look. The entire map had been drawn in black ink, with fine tips and the occasional broad stroke to define a mountain chain or a forest. The rivers and the oceans, the lakes and the seas had been given a soft splash of blue, while the domain borders and their capitals were highlighted with red ink. Names were elegantly written in swirling letters next to every settlement and at the center of every region, with varying styles to differentiate between districts, towns, cities, and domains. All in all, this was one of the prettiest and most comprehensive maps I’d ever come across, complete with miniature illustrations to identify ancient sites and the capitals.
“This looks fantastic,” I said.
Medina smiled. “Thank you. This map was commissioned about twenty years ago, and it took about five years to put together in this final form. It is, in my humble opinion, a true work of geographical art.”
“I think we can all agree on that,” Lumi replied. She frowned as she pointed at several areas on the map, on which small conical wooden figurines had been placed. “What are those?”
“Oh, I took the liberty of pointing out a few possible locations for you to search,” Medina said. “Ancient sites where an artifact like Eirexis could have been hidden over four million years ago. Most that are still standing today are mere impressions of what they used to be, though. All that remained were the foundations, and our scholars continue to brush the dirt away from them on a daily basis, looking to better understand what kinds of creatures lived here before the modern Cerixian.”
At first glance, I noticed eight conical figurines, all over the empire. Eight possible starting points for our search. That was a lot to begin with, though slightly better than the numbers I’d had in my mind prior to coming into this room.
“Are these sites guarded in any way?” I asked.
Medina nodded. “Most of them have been turned into museums and archaeological parks. The visiting structures were built around the actual sites, which are protected by massive glass casings. We have guards monitoring them every day and night. It’s part of an initiative to boost tourism across the domains, started after the empire was formed.”
“Any one of these could be a potential hiding place for Eirexis,” Raphael grumbled. “It’s going to take a while. How do we do this?”
“We could take each location one at a time,” I replied. “With my and Taeral’s teleporting ability, we won’t have to worry about time wasted traveling. We’ll have it all to spend on searching for Eirexis.”
“I presume the guards won’t be a problem for us,” Taeral said, giving Medina a questioning look.
“Oh, no, absolutely not. They’ll be ordered in advance to stand down, and you’ll be given special hoods with the prime minister’s monogram, so they’ll recognize you without you having to show your faces,” she explained. “Since discretion is key here, I figured I’d tell them you’re agents of the prime minister, tasked with checking the monuments on my behalf. With monogramed hoods and your masks on, you shouldn’t encounter any issues.”
Herakles straightened his back and crossed his arms. “It’ll be a good opportunity to test what Kabbah mentioned, regarding Taeral’s scythe.”
“That’s right,” Lumi replied. “If the blade reacts in proximity to Eirexis, it’ll certainly save us a lot of time searching in the wrong place.”
Taeral brought the blade up for everyone to see. Medina’s eyes grew wide with wonder, unable to look away. “So far, I don’t see much of a change,” he said. “But I’ll admit, it does give off a faint, almost unnoticeable buzz when I touch it. It didn’t do that before.”
“Which could, in fact, confirm Kabbah’s statement,” Eira breathed. “Could it be telling you that Eirexis is here, on this planet?”
Taeral nodded slowly. “Probably.”
“I mean, think about it this way. Put yourselves in Brendel’s shoes,” Eva said. “You just snatched Death’s most precious object. You dismantled it into three pieces, and you managed to come here, to Cerix, looking to hide the handle somewhere. What do you do? What place do you pick? At this point, you probably don’t know that, once you take your hands off Eirexis, you won’t be able to pick it up again.”
“Wait, why is that?” Medina asked, slightly confused.
“Brendel snatched Thieron in a moment when Death was weak. As soon as she broke it into pieces and stopped touching it, Thieron, even dismantled, engaged its self-protection protocol,” Lumi explained. “Ancient, timeless Death magic that not even the Hermessi could bypass. Their only hope, as well as Death’s, of ever touching it again, is if a living creature touches the pieces and survives the three guardian Reapers embedded in them. So far, no one has managed to do that, from what we were told. Otherwise, either Death or Brendel would’ve gotten their hands on Thieron already.”
