Page 22 of Sun Elves of Ardani

The next morning, just before the sun had risen, an ominous rumbling shook Neiryn awake. After realizing that he was not dreaming, he stumbled out of bed and went to the window.

His jaw dropped. He cursed. Then he rushed to get dressed, picked up his seeker, and ran outside.

When he got to the garden, Kadaki’s husband was already there with some of the miners. He held out an arm to stop Neiryn from approaching. “Stay back. We don’t know if it’s stable.”

Neiryn shot him a disdainful glance, but resisted the urge to shove his arm aside. Everything about Roshan annoyed him, and he planned to take every opportunity to put him in his place. But in this case, he couldn’t figure out a way to argue without looking foolish.

Kadaki was the next to come running out of the house. She was wearing the clothes she must have worn to sleep: loose, thin, white pants and a shirt made of the same material. The neck of the shirt was wide, baring her collarbones and much of her shoulders, and it was short enough that he caught flashes of her midriff when she moved. It was quite modest by Ysuran standards but risque for an Ardanian, and it was by far the most of her skin he’d ever seen.

She had also forgone shoes but had somehow managed one sock.

It occurred to him that he must look quite disheveled. He ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing down the bits that were sticking out. As usual, he didn’t realize he was staring at her until she caught him at it. She glanced up at him, frowned, and looked away, as if his presence were an annoyance but otherwise barely worth noting.

Eliyr and Rhian arrived next. Rhian’s uncombed hair tumbled over her shoulders. She reached back to tie it into a tail as she stopped beside Neiryn. They all looked out at the dig site. Or, where the dig sitehadbeen, because you certainly couldn’t give the miners sole credit for what was now before them.

An enormous sinkhole had opened up beneath the site. The hole that had been a dozen feet deep yesterday now could have fit most of the house inside it.

“No one’s hurt,” Roshan assured them, though no one had thought to ask. “We hadn’t started work for the day yet, so no one was nearby when it sank.”

“Neiryn?” Rhian said.

He drew the seeker out of its sheath. Immediately it began to glow as bright as a mage torch. Truth be told, he didn’t need the seeker to confirm it. He could feel the magic emanating from the hole and creeping along his skin.

“It could have been triggered by another anomaly,” Eliyr said.

There was a soft gasp, and then Kadaki ran toward the sinkhole. Neiryn’s heart stuttered in his chest. He ran after her.

She stopped at the edge of the hole, taking a quick step back when a bit of dirt and rock at her feet sloughed off. She pointed at the bottom of the hole. “Look!”

There, half buried in dirt, was a slab of white stone. It was squared off at the edges, cut by mortal hands.

Now he understood her excitement. It was the unmistakable smooth white stone of an Auren-Li ruin.

Kadaki started to climb into the hole, and Neiryn grabbed her arm to stop her.

“What is wrong with you?” he hissed.

“Take your hands off me.”

“Then stop trying to kill yourself. Do you want to be buried alive?”

She jerked away from him, but didn’t try to climb down again. She turned to the others, who had cautiously approached behind them. “Eliyr. Can you clear away some of the dirt down there?”

“Am I your servant?” he muttered. “Aren’t you also a mage? Allegedly?”

She frowned at him over her shoulder. “I was working on something last night and I’m still recovering my strength. If you don’t mind?” She gestured to the hole again.

Eliyr sighed and stepped closer to the hole. His face took on a look of intense concentration as he began whispering spell-words. Neiryn felt the magic in the air shift as he shaped it into a spell. A large pile of loose earth rose up out of the hole and deposited itself on the ground nearby. They all stared, rapt, as the dirt gradually cleared away and revealed more white stone.

The stone was part of a massive, open doorway. The lower half of it was still buried, but they could clearly see that the door led to a larger interior deep underground.

“I don’t believe it,” Roshan said faintly. “My house is on top of Auren-Li ruins.”

“Hardly very surprising,” Neiryn said. “Auren-Li ruins have been found at nearly every axis known to mortalkind.”

The ancient elves, masters of magic, had built all their cities in areas with high concentrations of magic, many thousands of years ago, before their race mysteriously disappeared. There was evidence of their presence along ley lines all across Heilune.

The remains of Auren-Li cities also frequently contained powerful and unique magic, the likes of which could not be found anywhere else in the world. To say that the discovery of a completely new ruin was significant was an understatement.

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