At that point in his translation, he had stopped and stared. The descriptions of the buildings made it clear that this must mean the Ancients. His hands had trembled and after giving himself some small-turns to only breathe, he double checked the words, and yet retranslating brought the same conclusion. The Ancients had somehow sucked the life force out of living things, the same as Otar.

  Even now, he wasn’t ready to face the implications.

  This was why he was also wandering the Seven Lands for the last seven summers—not only to find an answer and a cure, but to look for them.

  Because if he was alive, then …

  And yet, he had found nothing besides crumbling stone and a ghost haunting them.

  Otar stopped at the dome entrance and looked around. He was alone. Most scholars had left when the night crawled in, either because they were hungry and tired, or because at night, the shadows in the ruins moved, and ghosts whispered.

  For Otar, it had always been soothing. Dwelling on that, he walked through. It was as if the ruins were never empty, as if the Ancients still lived here, and at any moment one would emerge from the darkness and stride past him. Their long white hair and flowing tunic trailing behind them, the fair complexion a stark contrast in the gloom, glowing in the faint wall lights.

  Specters. Ghosts. Soul eaters.

  He stepped up to the mural, his eyes tracing the pictures. Words dropping into his head. A fishlike creature with too many fins and all the wrong colors whispered, “Ementis”, and then swam away, scales glittering in the sun; a small tree with little round leaves and black twigs was named “Eka”, bowing in strong winds almost to the ground; a tiny flower with white blossoms like twinkling stars was called “Asamara”, blooming under rust-colored skies; on and on it went. Maybe they had once been part of the Seven Lands, or they had come from beyond the ocean. And yet, their pictures on this mural were off.

  Otar didn’t flinch when the ghost appeared beside him.

  “Did I summon you?”

  Yes. Maugi’s voice was flat and neutral—emotionless. Distinct from the voice of the ruin itself, and different from the one in his dreams and visions. Was it all the same? Did they all have the same origin?

  Maugi itself was a phantom of many ruins. Otar never figured out how that worked. The most logical conclusion was, because no one could see it, that it was Otar who brought the ghost with him.

  What can I do for you?

  “Tell me about this place.”

  For a long moment, Maugi was silent. In the far distance, a steppe wolf cried. The faint tendrils of songs and music carried by a slight breeze drifted over from the kitchen area, like ghost fingers touching him.

  After a lengthy journey, we arrived here. Maugi’s voice had changed once more, closer to the one in his dreams. Otar felt a headache forming. We wanted to build an outpost and then communicate with home. We brought everything with us we might need, and we built the sender. This world didn’t like us and interfered. We couldn’t make contact. We were left alone. We searched and found another source of energy—

  “Otar?”

  He turned, his gaze meeting Andres’. In the pale ruin light, his face was all harsh lines and deep shadows, but his eyes were kind.

  His mind was still on Maugi’s words. They had come from the other side of the ocean and had been unable to go home, and for that, they had needed power? He blinked and pressed all the thoughts away, concentrating on the moment, making space for Andres.

  “Hey.”

  “Speak to me.”

  Otar inhaled, already constructing deflections. Then he sighed. He turned to the mural, stretching his hand out, pointing at the fishlike creature. The warmth at his side grew when Andres stepped closer.

  “Esmentis.” Otar’s tongue struggled with the unfamiliar word. He relied on his mind to guide him. “Eka.” And then “Asamara.” He let his arm drop.

  Andres didn’t move. “I thought no one knew the language.”

  “Yes.” Otar waited for the questions, the accusations, the scorn. The mural blurred before him, everything running together.

  “Tell me.” Andres’ voice was gentle. Otar used the other’s calm to steady himself.

  “They’re in me. When I look at them, any of them, I know their names.”

  “Do you really know them, or do you think you do?”

  Otar shook his head. He spread his fingers, close to touching, but never quite putting them on the stone. “When I look at a tree, or a yardar, or a person, I know what they are called. It is the same for those names on the wall.”

  “But how?”

  Otar dared to peer at him. Andres was studying the pictures. He didn’t seem angry, but confused.

  Otar licked his lips, his heart beating a fast staccato. “There is one possibility …”

  “You aren’t saying …”

  Otar shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know who or what I am. Nothing makes sense. How can I know when no one ever taught me? When nothing is documented? When no book is written about it?” Otar looked down at his hands; they trembled, his whole body shuddered.

  Arms enveloped him. Not pressing him closer, but holding him steady, grounding him. For a moment, Otar let it be. Then he gently extracted himself, taking a step back.

  More confusion flashed over Andres’ face, then everything smoothed out, his gaze open.

  “There is more.” Otar’s voice broke.

  Andres stepped forward, taking one of Otar’s restless hands and entwining their fingers. “Tell me.”

  “I have killed. More than once. There is a monster inside me. One that is always hungry.”

  “We all have,” Andres said in a low tone.

  “Not like this. It takes until the other person is all but an empty husk. I try to control it, but it slips through my grasp more often than not. And twice now I have let it reign free, not fighting it.”

  Andres drew Otar into his arms again and hummed. It wasn’t the reaction Otar had expected.

  Seeing the unasked question, Andres said, “The slavers’ leader, before I killed him, he asked if we killed the demon.” He chuckled. “And when we traveled, you know, there had been those odd little things over the winters. Touches that held too much intensity. Your drawn expression when we didn’t sleep together for a few turns.” Otar coughed, embarrassed, and Andres laughed. “It all connects. You fed on me.”

  “And you’re just alright with that?”

  Andres drew back in order to look at him. He took Otar’s face in his hands, stroking the thumbs over Otar’s cheeks. “I almost lost you twice. I’ll only let you go when you tell me.” His gaze turned intense. “Are you telling me to go?”

  “No!” The word broke out of Otar before he could even think about it.

  Andres hugged him tighter, and this time Otar melted against him.

  “There is more,” he whispered into Andres’ nape.

  “There always is.” Andres sounded amused. “Later than.”

  Otar pressed his face deeper into Andres’ neck. “Later.”

  Shouting surged from the direction of the ruins as Otar sipped his morning brew and wondered if every morning would now start like this. People turned their heads to the ruins. More yelling and cries of excitement carried through the forests of tents, and more and more people drifted over to check what the racket was about this time.

  Had the second smaller dome opened its gates?

  Otar finished his brew in measured sips and then followed the commotion.

  He saw Turas in the stream of people. Their gazes met. He looked as puzzled as Otar.

  They walked through the stone gate, down the buildings, and came to a stop in a semi-circle around the dome entrance.

  A group of steppe riders stood nearby, watchful and alert. Off to the side, Aaoran was listening to three scholars as they explained something with flailing arms and fast hand movements.

  Aaoran nodded their head a few times before they looked over. Their eyes met Otar’s. Once more, he wanted to turn and run, but he kept his feet planted. Then his mentor waved him over.

  It wasn’t until he fought through the ring of people to reach Aaoran that he found Turas had followed him.

  “And then they just moved,” one scholar, an older woman with close-cropped hair, was saying as he came closer, while the others nodded. Her tone made it clear that whatever had shifted should not have been able to move. Aaoran looked thoughtful while the scientists almost vibrated out of their skins.

  “What is going on?” Otar said when he was near enough. The mass of people in his back swayed forward to listen. They reminded Otar of the women in the tribe when they had asked to be drawn by him and were waiting eagerly in anticipation of his answer.

  But before Aaoran could reply, the scholar who had been talking cut in. “The stone blocks changed position again, and now they are emitting a soft glow.”

  Murmurs broke out, but the scholar’s voice was loud enough to be heard. “We wanted to investigate further, but the guards moved us out.” She threw a dirty gaze at the unmoving warriors. Aaoran held up their hands in a placative manner.

  “You know the rules. It was for everyone’s safety.” Their eyes twinkled, but the tone was resolute. The scholar rolled her shoulders back but didn’t contradict them. “We’ll check the situation with volunteers to make sure it is safe. If there are no concerns, then we will open it up to the rest,” Aaoran said loud enough so that their voice would carry to the waiting scholars.

  Hands shot up. And after some consideration, they formed two teams of four people, plus Aaoran, Otar, and two guards.

  They stepped into the main dome.

  The repairs are now done.

  The words slithered down Otar’s spine. He licked his lips and kept walking. The dome was empty. All had been driven out as the protocol demanded. In truth, the ruins had presented no real danger besides crumbling passages and walls. No one had ever been damaged by a ruin itself.

  Damaging with the ruin. I don’t understand.

  Otar was about to answer Maugi when he found he was the last of the group trailing behind. Maugi was the only one at his side. Otar opened his mouth but flicked his eyes to the others. He couldn’t just start talking to the air.

  Maugi flickered, disappeared and then reappeared as before.

  This might be easier to work with. The words flared to life in his mind. Otar stiffened his shoulders at the strangeness but then forced them to relax. It was bizarre. The words were his thoughts and not—they had no inflection, no intention. They just were.

  So now, he should answer in his mind as well?

  The monster stretched its ghostly fingers out, but before Otar could try to reign it in, it was rebuffed by an invisible barrier.

  The ruins have always been strange, and people have feared them. They reacted unpredictably, so people wondered if the ruins are set to hurt them.

  The palaces were built to ease the energy collection. They aren’t designed to act on their own.

  Otar wasn’t sure if that made more sense, but he let it go for a moment. It was hard to concentrate on the questions, to not let the thoughts drift as he always did when he thought about something.

  Who built the palaces?

  We did. The voice was harsh, different from Maugi. Otar wondered what was going on.

  Who is ‘we’?

  We are we, it said, and then there was silence in his mind.

  Before he could inquire more, they arrived at the smaller dome. He hesitated before crossing, but there would be nothing gained if he stayed outside.

  Where the stone blocks had stood before in a fence around the middle, they now formed six neat rows with three blocks in each. They emitted the same bluish glow as the ruins’ lights did when they were active. An eerie atmosphere had settled over the room, as if at any moment more ghosts would break forth and descend upon them.

  The scholars mingled among the stones while Otar checked the dark tile line they had previously stood on.

  Was the floor still solid?

  I will only act on your words. It was Maugi’s voice again.

  He walked over to one block, once more trying to find out where they fit together, struggling to discover the seams. Or were they cut from one big stone piece? Had they been harvested from the Black Mountains? If he remembered correctly, the rock there was more grayish, not as deep black as this here. He also couldn’t find any mineral deposits or sediment lines.

  It must be a resource they had brought over. It was clear they couldn’t be found here.

  Otar tried to do the calculations of their weight and what kind of ship would be needed to carry these all over. A nautical expert could shed some light on it.

  His eyes fell to the ruin walls.

  Did you also bring the stones to build the palaces?

  The city growth was done as soon as the first landing was finished.

  “Otar.”

  Otar looked to the side. Aaoran was watching him.

  “What do you make of this?”

  Otar studied the space Aaoran indicated. The blocks weren’t smooth anymore. There were little knobs and rectangles of slightly different colors on the blocks, with lighter and deeper black depressions interspersed. It looked like a puzzle-like pattern fit together by an unknown hand, to form a picture no one could make sense of.

  “Everything is divergent from what we have seen before,” Otar mused. His mind was divided. One part of it was here taking in the reality he was in, and the other tried to process all the things Maugi was whispering.

  Aaoran looked thoughtful. “You think this could be Eitin?”

  This is Inchenor.

  Inchenor?

  The first full outpost. Eitin is to the north, protected by a mountain range as a last effort— Maugi cut out.

  “No, this isn’t Eitin,” Otar answered Aaoran. Forcing himself to keep his thoughts together. “As per surviving documents, Eitin was the grandest. And while this is one of the bigger ruins we have found, it appears to be still contained.”

  Aaoran hummed in thought. “So a first settlement, as you have suspected.” They stared at the blocks. “I wonder if the other ruins hide something similar.”

  They don’t. Their cores are enough to keep everything in line.

  Otar puzzled over the word “cores”. If they meant the wells, it would make sense, he himself saw those as the heart.

  “Otar?”

  Otar turned his head to Aaoran, blinking. Their voice came from far away, as if he was slipping to a distant place. His mind drifted to all the events that had happened since he had arrived here and from there further back into the past.

  “Are you okay? You kept staring at the wall and didn’t react to anything I said.”

  Otar licked his lips, a nervous gesture he still couldn’t curb. The world was split. He was two things at the same time. Would Aaoran understand if he explained it? Would they call him crazy? A liar? Would anyone be willing to protect him if push came to shove? His eyes went back to the stones.

  “There is a ghost in my mind, whispering words. It has been there since the first moment I set foot into a ruin.” Or had it been just the initial manifestation, and he carried the ghost always inside him like the monster? Were they the same?

  Aaoran stilled, Otar felt their burning gaze.

  “It gives me observations. I can ask questions, but the answers rarely make sense.”

  Otar’s eyes traced the sleek blocks, willing them and himself far away. “It just told me that Eitin lies to the north. Somewhere deep in the mountains. It also told me that this, here,” he made a sweeping hand gesture, “is called Inchenor, the first.”

  The scholars moved around them, shouting remarks to each other, murmuring curses, wanting more or less light, filling their notebooks with frantic words and drawings.

  “Have you asked about the purpose of the blocks?”

  Otar paused. He hadn’t, he realized. He shook his head.

  “Will you ask now?”

  Already opening his mouth, he looked to Aaoran and heat crawled up his cheeks. He swallowed to hide his discomfort. “Maugi,” he whispered, mindful of the other scholars. “What is the purpose of the blocks?”

  Maugi answered without missing a beat.

  Here everything is stored.

  Otar repeated the words to Aaoran, who furrowed their brows.

  “I’m not sure I understand. Are these like barrels or crates and we need to pry them open?”

  Otar sighed. “Sometimes the ghost is more clear in what it tells me, but often it’s speaking in riddles almost on purpose. As if it thinks that I understand it better than I do.”

  Let me check you.

  A zip traveled down his back and Otar twitched. The monster growled, rising to the surface, chasing after the sensation. When nothing happened, it settled right under Otar’s skin.

  Aaoran stepped closer to him, not quite touching, but concerned. “What happened?”

  “Something jolted down my back.” The tickling spread throughout his body to his fingertips, his head, his toes, then it was gone.

  You are broken. You could understand me better if I fixed it.

  Aaoran leaned closer, curiosity written all over their face.

  “It wants to fix me—”

  “Otar.”

  The voice cut through everything else. Otar turned and met Andres’ gaze. His eyes were stormy in the gloomy light. Why was Andres here?

  Tell me when you are ready. I recommend it be done.

  Maugi’s voice never changed, as if it were all nothing to him, as if it were just a book, a provider of information. Otar blinked. There was something there—a spark, a world outside his grasp—his mind leeched onto it, reaching farther and farther. He was in two places at once: the room with the black stones and under a rust-colored sky with voices speaking simultaneously, as if—

  “Otar.” Andres’ voice was close now. His fingers grazed the back of Otar’s hand.

  The worlds in Otar’s mind snapped into one. His mind was sluggish to accept it, his vision doubled for a second, and his knees threatened to buckle under him.

  An exhale. And it all stabilized.

  His eyes searched the black stones again. Maugi was watching. Otar wanted to reach for it anew, but Andres’ hands circled his wrist, yanking him back.

 

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