Page 86 of Damned and Broken Gods
He was silent for several moments, and then his eyes did that dimming and brightening thing which I’d come to associate with a blink.
“Fire burns, it does not bare. You name the heat, not the heart. Two chances remain.”
Shit. My pulse thrummed in my throat. Come on. Think. I ran the riddle through my mind again, over and over.
I have no weight, yet I shape stone. I cannot be seen, yet I burn in bone. I die if held, I live if freed.
Not fire.
Then what?
What can shape stone but has no weight? Not seen…burn bone. I exhaled, exasperation tightening my chest.
My chest…My breath.
Air and wind. Stone eroded over time against the elements, right? Breath wasn’t seen. Could it burn bone? If I held it, then it felt like my body was burning. And then it would die…It had to be.
I lifted my chin. “I have an answer.”
“I am listening.”
“The answer is…Breath!”
His eyes dimmed and glowed. “Breath is vehicle, not the knowing. The expression, not the essence. One chance remains.”
“What? No! That has to be right. It’s unseen, and you can feel it in your bones, and it dies when held and…Fuck.”
“One chance.”
If I failed, then the guardian would kill me.
I looked over my shoulder, back down the tunnel.Please come back to me… Araz’s voice filled my mind.
I couldn’t die here. If I did, then all would be lost, but if I walked out, then…all would be lost too. I pressed my hand to my solar plexus and focused inward. To the space where Araz waited. To the hum that connected us and had grown stronger with every truth we’d shared. Those truths hummed inside me now, heating my bones and…
My eyes snapped open, and a calm settled over me. Because I knew the answer. Not a guess, but a marrow-deep certainty.
I’d approached the riddle too realistically and not metaphorically enough, and now that I switched my approach, the answer was clear.
“I know what the answer is now.”
The guardian remained still and silent, his eyes glowing steadily as he waited.
“The stone that you speak of is certainty. Belief. Foundation. And there is only one thing strong enough to challenge and change the shape of those, to maybe even shatter them. It has no weight, it’s unseen. It can burn in the bones, and it dies if held too tightly. But if freed it can thrive.” I took a deep breath. “The answer is truth.”
His eyes flared bright as if burning a path to my soul, and when he spoke, his voice was an echoing rumble. “Then with truth you may pass, Flameborn.”
The tunnel vibrated, and stone groaned as he stepped aside, placing his back to the tunnel wall. Heat smacked me in the face and made my eyes sting. I blinked back tears, staring at the arch that waited for me.
“Enter,” the guardian said. “Read the stones and answer with truth, and the bridge will form. Lie and you will fall.”
Legs trembling, I walked past the guardian and through the arch. Hot air surrounded me, sucking at my skin and pulling thebreath from my lungs. It took a moment to acclimatize to the temperature change and for my blurred vision to clear. But when it did, I found myself on the threshold to a circular chamber that had no floor. An island sat in the center, housing a pedestal with a box on it.
I took a step forward onto the ledge that protruded toward the island then peered down at a drop that seemed to go on for an age, ending in the bright orange glow of molten lava.
What had the guardian said? That questions would appear on stone?
I looked down at the ledge as words materialized in glowing white script, in a language I couldn’t read. I blinked and the words blurred, and when they sharpened, I could read them.
