The Mark of Aether

Fallen Stars~PartIII

My cinders flew away in the dark sky, moved and swayed in the thin air for a second. Only a second, not more, not less.

Only a second until I felt the impact of a harsh ground underneath me.

I was lying on a soft floor, lighting casting a cotillion against my poor eyes; my eyes had surrendered too much to the darkness.

I stirred and rose, my sights nothing short than surprising. But what stung the most was the clearing sky. I searched the splashy sky with my eyes, taking in the sight of an almost cleared sun.

Twenty minutes.

What the heck?

I didn't understand. Not much before falling, I still had a timeline hanging between one and half an hour and two. But now, this...

How was it possible?

'The endless pit, swallower of time. One second there costs large amount of time depending from where you've fallen.'

"Whose here? Show your face,'' I ordered, my knives already between my fingers.

No answers.

I asked again. Still no responses.

I didn't bother to think. I didn't have time.

Whatever—whoever—this  was wasn't willing to show.

I walked and realized my magic had dumped me in what looked like an open temple. It was seated on a high mountain top, overlooking everything. Like a holy aerie of some sort. I clutched my bleeding waist as I walked, trying hard not to move my shoulder.

The walls were thin columns carved with most beautiful of designs, gold sprawling and twisting around each and every single curve with such beauty.

It was shaped like a gazebo, opened with no solid walls. Just columns and more columns that met high in the sky, forming the skeleton of a dome. From the intersection fell and cascaded a train of light, drowning everything in its glow. The earth of pure, smooth colored glass. Each step I took was walking on clouds. The glass told stories, the stories of each deceased that once beheld a life. And died victoriously.

A low, mellifluous humming sang in the air, caressing my hearing. A voice so sweet, so beautiful to be real. It guided me, in a different language, but I understood it. And followed.

I mounted stairs of glass and silver, passed through hallways bathed in running light. And yet, in the beauty and loneliness that it held, something was watching.

I kept moving, dragging one foot in front of the other, my muscles refusing to obey. The wound on my face cooled and stung. The hits that my stomach received hurt like hell, but I had to keep moving. 
For my friends and my father, I had to keep moving.

And then I stopped. In front of me stood another part of the temple. A part that stood alone on the higher place that could be reached. Same structure, same built.

And in its middle, a large, dripping gold rostrum stood. With pride, a tome was seated like a bejeweled crown on its throne.

I gaped for a moment, and just one. My brain proceeded everything, yet it still didn't believe it. The book. The book of Astazan itself was only a few meters away.
Unguarded.

Absolutely not a good sign.

I checked every possible direction around me, waiting for something to appear. Or at least, to catch someone watching, waiting, aiming. But no one. Not even this talking being from before.