Medilus 1, 1278: Temple of the Slithering Sun. Sometimes when you find a trap, it’s best to set it off and get it over with…

It felt like I’d walked into a hungry oven.

I approached the double archway. A gust of warm, stale air hit me like a hard shove. A bitter, burnt-oil stench burrowed up my nose. The same kind as from the hidden temple in the Mandami Hills. The tension in the air felt as inevitable as an executioner’s blade to the neck.

Heart racing, I glanced to either side as Skarri and Kiyosi moved up next to me. A solemn quiet greeted us. The old temple was a forgotten battlefield that remembered every footstep, every shouted prayer, and the last sobbing cry for mercy. I had the uneasy feeling that the ghosts had stopped to watch, wondering if we’d really disturb the dead.

Which—of course we did.

“Let’s do this,” I whispered in a ragged voice.

I crossed the threshold into the main temple—the beating heart of Toshirom Ifoon. The moment I did, the world shifted. As if the place had struggled for centuries to contain something that shouldn’t exist.

The ceiling, with its impossibly graceful wavelike arches, soared overhead. Each of the eight thin, elegant supports came together at the top in a round circle. Together, they supported a curved ceiling painted like the sky. It looked as if the sky had been poured into an inverted ceremonial bowl waiting for an offering.

It was the same story we’d found before—the Sunfate Sisters locked in perpetual conflict between day and night. Here, it played out across the ceiling, spilling down the walls. A long, cosmic story that wrapped around the room, which was easily fifty Ancient Order meters across. Those walls weren’t pristine. They were marred by age and tall, thin smears of gray-black soot. Each mark sat above burning braziers on the floor, punctuating the walls at eerily precise intervals.

Like any Sunfate temple, the center was dominated by the usual wide, glassy reflection pool of blue-black water. Three massive white-marble statues of the Sunfate Sisters, two stories tall, loomed over everything with stern expressions. All three had fixed their marble gaze on an enormous black granite throne in the middle of the pool. A viprin skeleton—easily three Ancient Order meters tall—in battered bronze armor sat slumped on the throne.

I glanced around from the crackling fire to the mural and all. Curved brass plates high on the walls reflected the firelight, focusing it on the Sunfate statues. Each statue held a sun-shaped, dusty lens the size of a serving tray. They caught the yellow-orange light and bathed the giant skeleton between them in a flickering warmth.

“Wonderful,” I muttered, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. “The exact kind of wonderful that gives me hives.”

“It’s… giant,” Skarri breathed, horror lacing the words together as she stared at the throne. “My people aren’t that… large.”

Kiyosi rubbed his thumb and fingers together, feeling the texture of the gritty air against his skin.

“Magic,” Kiyosi said in a flat tone. “Enough of it in one place—especially uncontrolled—alters anything… or anyone.”

He meant magic storms, like the one that had made him a tiefling at birth. I slid Kiyosi a concerned look. It was an uncomfortable topic. Kiyosi gave me a tiny, reassuring nod. I focused back on our temple-sized problem.

“Well, at least it isn’t moving,” I murmured, walking ahead. “At least… not yet.”

We moved farther into the cavernous room, wary of anything that might have a deep, abiding need to hurt us. Orange light from the burning braziers made the air tremble, heat shimmering against the walls. It was enough light to see by. I dropped my Sun Orb crystal back into my bag.

Flames rose in narrow columns, casting seductive shadows against the walls. They licked the air greedily, but never seemed to devour it. More broken skeletons littered the gritty stone floor—another mixture of humans, viprin, and others. They were arrayed in clumps, where they’d fought to the death as allies, not enemies.

I glanced warily at Kiyosi. “How is that fire even burning? Is it real?”

He pinched the warm air between a thumb and forefinger and tugged; eyes burning a dim sun-yellow. Glowing golden threads spun out, trailing after his hand.

“The fire’s genuine,“ he said. “It’s not enchanted, but…” Kiyosi rubbed the magic threads between his fingers “…it feels like whatever’s keeping the fire lit is just wrong. Not magic threads, anyway. At least, not how I understand them.”

“Another trap,” said Skarri, flicking her tongue.

“… or part of one,” I added. “Skarri? I’m not sure this was meant to seal something away. It feels more like a prison.”

“I know that now…” Her voice trailed off into a sad echo. “But Herd Tolvana? Jata kingdom? That lich and the Fateweavers? They don’t need to touch this…”

My words rolled out like a vow.

“They won’t. I meant what I said. By the Lady Deep, we’re putting a stop to this.”

I studied the plethora of skeletons, statues, and the pool’s bony centerpiece. Slowly, I hissed air out from between my teeth.

“It’s here… I can feel it,” I grumbled, eyes settling on the armored skeleton in the pool. “The Iraxi or whatever keeps killing people.”

“Both? Both are good,” Kiyosi said with a tattered chuckle. “What’s the plan?”

I scrubbed a hand over my face, wiping away sweat as I stared holes into the giant skeleton and its armor. A short glimmer of light winked at me from the metal bracers on the bony forearms, hands in its lap. I tilted my head a little, with an ironic half-smile. A question I’d been wrestling with just got an answer—and it wasn’t a nice one.

“Liru told me the Iraxi, the Fire Loom of Heaven, was a device. A tool that let its user draw out sun threads—light and fire braided together.” I reached into my battered shoulder bag with a free hand, digging around. “But no one’s really described it. So I figured it was worn like a ring or an amulet.”

Skarri frowned, glancing at what I was doing.

“Maybe a pin or a brooch?” She tapped the center of her scarred, leather breastplate. “Those fit under armor.”

“Yes, something easy to carry.” Shaking my head with a bitter smile, I withdrew my fist from my bag. “Also, your people’s history is adamant that they never made the Iraxi, but found it. They called it a gift, but nobody’s asked… from whom?”

Kiyosi wiped sweat off his cheek with the back of a hand, leaving a smudge of rock dust across his blue skin.

“You’ve got something… you know who.”

I raised my eyebrows at him, stepping closer toward the giant corpse and the odd glimmer.

“I had a guess. Someone who had a lot to gain by giving the viprin clans this Aile Shavat of a gift,” I said. “Someone willing to sacrifice those people Fateweaver-style to break the Ancient Order.”

Slowly, I unclenched my fist, holding up the finger-length quartz crystal toward the giant skeleton and its armor. The crystal shone a warm yellow, a complementary contrast to the orange glow surrounding us from the nearby pyres. At the crystal’s center, the smudge of the lich’s dark, corrupted spirit danced like a devil on a pin. My eyes darted between the quartz in my hand and the wink of light on one of the skeleton’s bracers—a small, dusty bit of gemstone.

It glimmered orange in the brazier-light—dark center swirling with the same wrong motion.

I clenched my jaw. The crystals matched.

Kiyosi and Skarri’s eyes went wide—horrified, disbelieving.

“The Gatekeeper Society of liches,” I said solemnly. “They’d erase an entire people, just to break a kingdom and install their own bloody rulers.”

“By the Mending Brother and his healing hands…” Kiyosi stammered.

Skarri shivered, caught between cold understanding and outrage.

“They used my entire people as a sacrifice?”

I gestured at them with the lich-crystal.

“They tried.” I glanced over my shoulder at the giant skeleton. “Centuries ago, someone in the Ancient Order, or among your people’s shamans, figured it out, too. That’s why there were mind magic threads on the front door, like some kind of lock. Gatekeeper liches are fascinated with mind magic. They just can’t use it, and it hurts if they touch it. That was why Rima Nimad was so intrigued by me in the Mandami Hills temple.”

“Tela,” said Skarri. “Shamal Liru specifically wanted your help to get the Iraxi—no one else.”

We shared a bitter look.

“I know. He’s got some serious explaining to do. Also, I think the Gatekeepers are trying this lunacy again with Herd Tolvana to break the Jata kingdom.” I blew out a hot sigh. “Ki? If the Ancient Order worked with the viprin stonemasons, there had to be artisans here. Search the dead. You know what to look for. Notes, journal… probably a journal. I’m betting the Iraxi is a set of items—a pair of crystals with someone trapped inside each one.”

“Right,” said Kiyosi, turning away.

Skarri coiled her tail underneath her, a determined look in her eyes.

“What can I do?”

I gave her a lopsided grin, returning my whip to my belt.

“Let’s get a look at that skeleton, and figure out how to get the Iraxi crystals.”

Kiyosi moved with a healer’s steady precision between the centuries-old dead. Viprin clan bags and more hadn’t done well over the centuries, but the Ancient Order worked with sterner stuff. Near the massive black granite seat and the Sunfate Sister statues, I climbed onto the pool’s rim, Skarri close behind.

I studied the throne with a wary eye. The sight of charred manacles on the throne made me hesitate.

“Are those… steel?” asked Skarri uneasily.

“Saint’s damn tide, they are,” I breathed. “They weren’t broken… they’re melted.” I glanced at Skarri, gesturing farther up the throne with my chin. “Come on, let’s keep going.”

Skarri nodded back, speechless and wide-eyed, mouth set in a determined line.

I hauled myself onto one of the wide granite arms, crouching on the balls of my feet. One of the bracers with its glowing quartz crystal was in tantalizing reach. Skarri pulled herself onto the other armrest of the throne. We were careful to avoid the enormous viprin skeleton as best we could. I swapped an uneasy look with Skarri and then set to work looking for needles, or worse, that might kill us.

“Got a bag!” Kiyosi called out.

He eased a dark blue canvas belt with a pouch from underneath a skeleton. The impossibly durable material had a coating that reflected the firelight like a midnight promise. Kiyosi worked the buttons loose, pulling open the flap.

I watched him for a moment, then squinted at the bracer in front of me. There wasn’t anything to keep us from taking the bracers or the single gemstones set in each one. That scared the hell out of me. I glanced over at the temple guard.

“What do you think?”

She shook her head, the tip of her snake-tail flicking irritably.

“Nothing. It looks too safe.”

I glanced at the skeleton, whose fire-baked bones lounged in the granite throne. The skull was tilted toward me, jaw open, as if laughing.

“Not funny,” I snarled at the skeleton, then studied the throne and statues again for any hint of pain we were about to touch. Finding none, I looked at the statues. Really looked. “Wait. The Sisters. Normally they’re smiling, all goddess-like. These are frowning at our giant, bony friend.”

“What about their glass lenses?” Skarri suggested.

My jaw fell open when I saw it. I snapped my fingers.

“The light from the lenses reflects off the gems. If we break the light, I bet it sets off the protection.”

“Tela!” Kiyosi shouted from the floor, lifting an old, battered journal. “It’s the light! Break the reflection, and all nine watery hells tear loose. I found a journal from a Venerati Arcanist. It explains why. There are notes on the crystals, too—something is inside them.”

The bargain Azure suffered through leaped to mind.

I traced the light with my eyes, then looked around the ruined temple with its carpet of the dead. There were bronze bucklers and other shields among the skeletons.

“Ki! Keep that journal. Also, grab two shields and hand them up.” I raised my eyebrows at Skarri. “I’ve got an idea.”

In moments, Kiyosi handed up two metal bucklers. Large as dinner plates, Skarri and I rubbed some of the dirt away from the metal. Kiyosi put the book back in its bag, then buckled on the Ancient Order belt.

I locked eyes with Skarri.

“Ready?”

She nodded. We hooked the bucklers’ straps around a ragged stone spur at the throne’s spine, wedging each rim against the skeleton’s armored shoulder plates. It was just stable enough to keep the light’s path intact. We sat back warily. Nothing happened. A ragged sigh practically hollowed me out.

“Grab the bracers. We’ll rip out the stones later.”

We unbuckled the bracers from the skeleton, then turned to climb down and rejoin Kiyosi.

Fire vomited skyward from the braziers around the room—smoke curling above them in acrid tendrils. Marble cracked with deadly finality as the three Sunfate Sister statues turned their heads, stabbing glares at us.

Which was exactly when everything went wrong.