Born of Water

Born of Water Chapter 39

Chapter 39

THE TEMPLE OF THE WINDS

"Please tell me this is an illusion," Ria whispered to Zhao as she sank to her knees.

Zhao looked down at her, his jaw slack and silver eyes wide. Ria did not need him to say anything to know that what she saw was the same for him. The wide rocky flatness of the mountaintop held only a stone wall with the remains of one lofty, arched window. All else was empty.

Anger and frustration flooded through Ria, filling her eyes with hot tears. "This can't be everything!" she shouted to the cool evening air. "Everything!" echoed off the lower peaks beneath them, filling the voids with sound. "No!"

Ria leapt to her feet and raced by Zhao as he grabbed for her. She was in the center of what should have been the Temple before she thought to care if the ground around her was real. Rising sobs cut off her breath. Ria fell to her knees, body and spirit spent.

The hike inland had taken four days, all of it climbing upwards. Forested slopes led up foothills until they ascended from a ravine to meet the wind-blasted heights of a ridge. Under their feet, the soft litter of needles had become rock. The humid, pine scented air changed to cold, thin breezes. It took two days of wandering to find the first steps carved into the mountain and two more to climb up them.

It could have taken only one. But early on the first day of the old path to the Temple, Zhao had grabbed Ria roughly. She had led the way, impatient to see this last Temple where her hope to find answers to free herself lay.

"What are you doing? The path is this way."

Ria wrenched out of Zhao's grip. "Very funny, Zhao. That is just a rock wall."

He darted forward and grabbed her again as she took another step. Ria struggled against his grasp.

"Stop it. Are you crazy? There is a cliff there! Can't you see it? Nothing but ... air." Zhao let out his breath with the word, falling motionless at the same moment as Ria. Both looked at the other, faces pale.

"What do you see, Zhao?" Niri asked, one hand against the mountain as she caught her breath from the climb.

"There is a cliff to the right, where Ria was about to step. The path goes to the left through a narrow gap in the rocks."

Ty ran a hand through sweaty damp hair. "I see the path hugging the mountain to the right. It is just a rock wall to the left."

"Illusion, a trick of air ... did you know of such things, Zhao?" Darag asked, quietly.

Zhao shook his head, Ria holding on to him rather than struggling. "Which way do you think is right?" he asked.

"It is the Temple of the Winds made by Air Elementals. I've never heard of them using illusions when I was at Solaire, but ... there seems to be as much the Church knows as it doesn't. What you see is real, Zhao. We will follow you."

"But you can control air," Zhao argued.

"It doesn't make up for having it as a birthright."

Zhao waited another moment before pulling away from Ria. He kept her hand as he walked to the left, disappearing from view when he met the rock wall. Ria followed, closing her eyes as she stepped through. But when she opened them, the trail was in front of her again and behind her she could see the sober and tired faces of Lavinia, Darag, Ty, and Niri.

Relief filled her, but once they were beyond the illusion, doubts rose. She no longer believed what she saw. Zhao led the way. But she worried that if he walked too far ahead, he would step across another illusion and be lost from view. It left her nervous and added to the strain of hiking and climbing in the cold air. As the fourth day since leaving the Dhazoh dawned, conversation died and the only sound was footfalls and the wind.