Feet racing down the hallway captured their attention. The Nevemere and Vantra scurried behind the few stacks of furniture wide enough to hide them, and the ghosts drifted through crates. She appreciated that Red stayed with them, a stout protector.

Guards and vi-van, breathless, their strained words filled with fear, ran to the door. The lead woman smacked into the open doorway and fell, stunned. Those with her stared, then a guard gingerly reached out, his fingers sliding across air. He pounded on it with his fist, and Vantra thought a crackle of Light snaked away from every hit.

They shouted at each other, pointing at the doorway, spit flying. A vi-van attempted to eradicate the protection with spells, but they snuffed out once they touched the shield. The woman who rammed into it gained her feet with the aid of a companion, blood rushing down her lips and chin from her nose, staining her chest. She took an unstable step, bent over, and her helper snapped something at the guards. One hefted her up and carried her away; the rest followed, with the woman who struck with magic attempting one last assault before screaming in frustration through her teeth. She whirled and stomped away, the beads and bells on her ankles ringing.

And Vantra sensed something else besides Nevemere fear.

She covered her breastbone with her hands and concentrated. She felt it, the subtle tug on the link between her and Laken. Katta claimed it was strong, despite Nolaris’s interference. She had considered it weak because she had not completed the binding, and perhaps that was true from a distance, but now, within the temple, she detected it. Could he sense her in return? Then he knew the mini-Joyful came for him.

She sent a pulse through the link, to reassure him. A faint response tingled her essence.

“Good job, Tally!” Red snickered, popping up.

“Better me than you,” she gritted. “You’d have put that stink smell in it, and every strike would have released it.”

Vantra covered her mouth and nose. He would have?

He pulled his lips down in an exaggerated frown and smacked his fingers against his chest. “You know me too well.”

“Benefits of traveling with you for two thousand years,” Kjaelle muttered.

A rolling rumble shook the boxes and lone items around them. Objects jiggled together, clinking and clanking. Red frowned, his humor fading, and he concentrated on the doorway.

Tagra and Memmi spoke in heated whispers while Kenosera rose and regarded them with serious concern.

“Whatever is causing the shaking, the guards and vi-van are afraid of it,” the nomad said. “They think the Fort is responsible because they kidnapped the outspoken elders, and they wanted more of those spears, to protect themselves. I think the elders are already here, which is why the temple thinks an attack is imminent.”

“We can’t let them use the mephoric emblems,” Red said. “They have no idea what they hold. Mishandling just one can obliterate this temple and everything inside—and a chain reaction will destroy Black Temple and the surrounding desert.”

Kenosera sucked in a concerned breath. Memmi yanked on her brother’s sleeve, agitated, and he whispered to her. Her shock and fearful regard of the boxes spoke loudly.

Red ran a hand across the top of his head. “Tagra, will the Fort listen to you, if you ask them not to attack?”

He swallowed. “Maybe. I’m not certain they would believe this.”

“Who would they listen to?”

“Maybe an elder, but they would not believe this, either.”

“Where would the vi-van confine the elders they brought here?”

Kenosera eyed Memmi, and Tagra asked her. She thought, then shook her head as she answered.

“She’s uncertain,” her brother said. “The temple doesn’t have confinements. The only secure rooms are the sacred rooms, and she doesn’t think the vi-van would agree to putting them in one, but Netalli is in charge until the naro vi-van recovers.”

“Netalli?” Kenosera asked, disgusted. “What of Keraddi?”

“Netalli?” Red asked.

“She is Kenosera’s cousin from his father’s generation,” Tagra said, aggrieved. “I doubt she has ever laughed in her life.”

Vantra raised an eyebrow at that. Chroniclers never expressed strictness when writing of Veer Tul’s experiences; his softness and gentleness reigned through them. An austere follower seemed antithetical to his personality and how he conducted his cult.

But perhaps Rezenarza called to her, as he did the naro vi-van.

“She is fanatic,” he continued. “Memmi told us last night that she broke when the naro vi-van collapsed, and sees all as an enemy—though she wisely left the head be. She did not want to end up like her superior.”

“Netalli will stand with the dor-carous,” Kenosera seethed, frustrated. “She will not soothe him, but promote his paranoia. Keraddi is a stronger voice.” He spoke with Memmi, then hissed through his teeth. “She says Netalli calls Keraddi a Fort sympathizer, and she has lost her voice with my grandfather. This is bad.”

Red rubbed at his mouth. “Kenosera, would the Fort listen to you?”

“He has a better chance,” Tagra said as his friend protested. “Even with the Fort, dor-carous words carry strong to their ears.”

“You have a plan?” Kjaelle asked, though she sounded as if she already knew.

“We have a more serious problem than rescuing Laken and the shard,” the ancient ghost declared. Vantra’s initial flare of denial succumbed to the concession that saving both would be moot, if the city and the surrounding desert exploded in a magic apocalypse. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Vantra, you and Lorgan need to find Laken and the shard. Vantra, your link to Sun should guide you to the shard.”

“I can sense my link to Laken, too,” she admitted.

He perked up. “Great! Now, since you’ll be visiting two of the sacred rooms, nose about the others and see if you can find the kidnapped elders.”

“The sacred rooms are all in the Sacred Touch of Darkness,” Kenosera said. “It is what we call the two topmost floors. My grandmother’s suite is there, so there will be many guards and vi-van to avoid.”

“Hmm. Vantra, you might want to leave Laken’s pack with us. It’ll be easier for you and Lorgan to move about in Ether form.”

She nodded and shrugged out of it; Kjaelle accepted it with a wink.

Red pointed at Kenosera. “Find the Fort leaders and tell them to halt their attack. Tell them about the mephoric emblems. Make them listen. Kjaelle, Tally and I are going to the courtyard. Whatever is causing the rumbling and shaking is there—and so are most of the mephoric emblems. Tagra and Memmi, you need to be the Voice of Darkness and convince as many guards and vi-van as you can to stand down.”

Tagra frowned. “Voice of Darkness? That is vi-van—”

“You have to accept it, though. Through Kjaelle, Veer Tul can bless you, but only if you agree.”

Tagra turned to his sister as another, more vigorous rumble shook the room. Vantra, still in Physical form, fell along with the nomads.

“Dammit,” Red muttered through clenched teeth. “He couldn’t have—”

“What else do you think it is?” Kjaelle asked him, dark testiness in her tone. Vantra frowned. She sounded as if she knew the origins of the rumble.

“Rezenarza getting pissy?” he said, his humor absent. “Vantra, Lorgan, Kenosera, go. Time is against us.”

Vantra wanted to ask, and from Kenosera’s uncertainty, so did he, but the protections on the door disintegrated and Tally pushed her and Lorgan into the hallway before they respawned. The scholar cocked his head at her, and she firmed her lips.

“Rive eucton.” She became Ether, and as a precaution, thinned her essence for transparency. Lorgan faded until only a hint of color and motion marked his presence, but she could not wane more and remain conscious enough to function. She deflated; yet another Touch ability she needed more practice in.

She concentrated, reaching for Laken. She followed the link, but another rumble and shake knocked her consciousness back to the hallway. Looking at her companion, she snagged his hand and floated through the wall. He trusted her, for he strengthened his grip and let her cart his essence with her. A small thing, but she appreciated his faith, one she did not have in herself.

They entered a room with dark walls, grungy wooden floors, and a flickering lantern at both entrances. An aisle ran between rows of hay-padded sleeping rolls. Each had a collection of objects near the pillows, like a book or box or jewelry on a tiny stand. A single outfit lay folded at the bottoms, of poor quality and faded color.

The servants’ quarters? Vantra did not have time to study the place and whisked to the far door, across the hallway, and into a deserted room. Transparent silken clothing of multiple colors lay across the edges of wooden tubs, half-floating in grey water, bars of pink-hued soap scattered on the surrounding floor. Other garments hung from wringer and dry ones trembled on lines. Flower perfume permeated the air, covering another, vile scent.

They zipped across another hallway and into third room, as empty as the other two, this one with stacks of ceramic plates and glassware and other eating implements haphazardly strewn across the floor between tubs of water. Some had fallen, shards from broken items dispersed in all directions.

“Where is everyone?” Vantra whispered. “Did they flee when the rumbling started?”

“I don’t know,” Lorgan said. “Someone should have cleaned up after Rezenarza’s attack. It’s been a couple of days, but I don’t get the sense anyone’s been in these rooms today.”

A burst of Sun, directed at her, obliterated her sight. She gasped and dug her nails into Lorgan’s hand.

“Vantra?”

“The shard,” she whispered. “It calls.” The Touch of sweet light surrounded her, and she hugged it close before releasing it; she needed her wits to continue, and reveling in the sensation would not accomplish that.

“How close is it?”

“We need to get Laken first.” She hated putting the shard second, but her Candidate came before any Sun-touched item that had navigated the evening lands long before her arrival. Laken distrusted his Redemption enough; she refused to add to his cynicism.

He chuckled, though she had no idea why he found the words amusing.

Vantra led Lorgan through empty room after empty room, down vacant hallways with grime and grunge covering the walls and floors; places guards and vi-van would never tread. It served them, for living beings would not notice transparent them against dimness, but Vantra disliked the implications; her mother never saw her fellow acolytes as less, and the gardeners and cleaning staff received the same treatment as the priests and priestesses. Not all Sun followers thought the workers as equal to the leadership, but her mother never wavered in her conviction that those considered less worked just as hard in Sun’s glory as those of worth.

The shock of a well-lit room filled Vantra. Within were wheeled carts, boxes, cleaning and bedding supplies set in cabinets, unwashed sheets in large containers, and dirty tableware dumped into handled bowls. She privately gloated she could not smell—well, except for Red’s spell, but that did not count.

The back wall contained a narrow and steep stair, and she wondered how anyone with an armload made it up and down without falling and crashing to the final tread. Smears of random gunk marred the walls, and dings and gouges littered the stairs. No railing, either.

“Someone’s coming down,” Lorgan hissed.

The scholar tugged her to a cabinet with enough items that a quick glance would not expose them if they hid within them. The tip-tap of footfalls reached them, and a moment more, before a group of women erupted from the stair.

Vantra guessed them vi-van. They wore transparent dresses or nothing at all, their bodies weighed down by multiple necklaces and bracelets, decorative beaded strings dangling from their hair and ears. Their faces had black paint running from the top of their foreheads to their chins, with one side white, the other grey—markings she associated with vi-van.

They wove around the clutter and raced to the door and away, feet pounding on the wooden floorboards, panting.

“More come,” Lorgan said.

Vantra looked up and pointed; he nodded as a second group, guards with mephoric emblems, their normal spears strapped to their backs, leapt one and two steps at a time, reaching the bottom with heavy thumps and rushing after the vi-van. They staggered as another rumble, deeper, more violent, shuddered through the building, knocking items about.

They did not have time to watch. She pushed away from the floor, aiming for the ceiling; the sense of disgusting filth accompanied the phasing through the wood and in-between space and into the floor of the story above. She shuddered, repulsed, rising one more before she could no longer abide the contamination. Lorgan slapped a hand to his chest, wincing in revulsion.

Vantra took a quick peek and bolted across the hallway and to a dark room on the opposite side, her essence quivering as she entered relative safety. The scholar hustled after and blended with the shadows.

No shouts, no calls. No one noticed them? She peeked around the doorframe; to her right, three rows of tense guards faced the floor-length windows, holding mephoric emblems instead of their spears, which were strapped to their backs. That made no sense. Why use unknown weapons when they had perfectly good, familiar ones? Their attire concerned her, too; they only wore shorts, items not even remotely considered armor. They were not ready for a fight. Did that mean they did not expect the Fort to reach this floor?

The door to her left stood open, a white, inviting light issuing from the room beyond. The plain walls had greyish-purple paint, an appropriate Evenacht color to represent Darkness. It led somewhere important, for so many guards to stand in front of it.

“We shouldn’t do that more than necessary,” Lorgan whispered. “The taint’s potent enough to contaminate our essences.”

“What was that?” While dusty, sometimes moldy, and sometimes filled with rodents and insects, normal structures did not contain that level of ick in the spaces between walls and ceiling and floor. Her essence wanted to puke.

“They might have some contaminated relics that leak magic into the building, or Rezenarza planned for ghosts. I don’t know, but it isn’t worth an infection.” He joined her, then glanced out the windows that held the guards’ attention. Vantra could see nothing but darkness through them, but something happened below that attracted them. He withdrew further into the room, shaking his head. She floated to him and he pressed his lips to her ear. “Since they’re holding the emblems, we need to avoid them. They can’t be tempted to use them.”

She nodded in unhappy resignation. “So we need to go to the left.”

“Yes, but there’s an odd feel about it. For a temple to Darkness, this lacks what I’d expect to sense inside.” She agreed. She had visited enough temples in Evening to know that the Touch of syimlin in the evening lands was as strong as that on Talis, and doubly so for Death and Darkness.

“I studied plans of this temple before I came here with Laken. Things can change in a thousand years, but I think that room’s the naro vi-van’s suite. We need to be cautious.”

Wondrous. Where she really did not want to be.

As silent as any ghost, they floated into the suite. The transformation from soft purple aura to stark white astounded Vantra. She did not associate the color scheme nor its bright feel with one who held the favor of Darkness. She noted that, where the walls had dings towards the base molding, the same greyish-purple from the hallway peeked through. So Kenosera’s grandmother painted over an obvious Veer Tul symbol. Did she just like white?

The sense of wrongness grew as they hustled past delicate landscape paintings and the portraits of grey-haired women lining the small entry. In the ghostly Evenacht, white commonly represented either Light or Sun, and often, the Moon. Among the living, the color not only denoted death due to its connection with ghosts but also the mists and the deity who maintained them. Several cultures used it to symbolize the Voidlands and the Sunderlands, places of white sand, white snow, and hardship.

The paint held no references to any of that, just a starkness, a blankness devoid of a deity’s touch. If the naro vi-van sold her people to Rezenarza, should not the shadows of his power coat the quarters? But the air was barren of him as well.

A vi-van entered the hall, and Vantra slipped into a small room with a door in the back. A gold sconce nailed above it provided an abundance of light, enough that if the Nevemere glanced within, she would probably notice the wash of ghostly color against the white wall. Lorgan materialized and tried the knob—open!—and they fled inside. He fumbled with it, but the click of the lock falling into place would keep the woman out.

Darkness. Vantra could not see her nose, let alone anything else. Lorgan created a bauble, the bluish light softening the shadows. They stood in a narrow hallway with yellow wood panels running to the wainscotting, which was a deep orange, and which, in turn, ended at a thin red carpet—colors not associated with Darkness, but seemed more in keeping with hues representing a desert people.

The pull on their link became fierce, insistent; Laken was near. She wrapped herself around it and followed where it led.

They passed several portals before arriving at one that leaked a soft purple. Lorgan again employed Physical Touch, dispatched the light, and opened the door; they whisked inside, closed it, and pressed against the wall.

They stood on a half-circle balcony with a carved railing that reminded Vantra of the one her mother used to address the Sun acolytes during the most sacred holidays, only black and purple reigned there instead of white and gold. Black reflective tiles covered the floor. A chair of black-stained wood sat in the center, raised on a single-step platform, tall black vases with purple boughs to each side. A tapestry provided a backdrop for whoever sat within, though Vantra did not recognize the symbols written down the center.

At the right arm of the chair, near enough one seated could touch it, sat a sleek black stone orb with yellow veins running through it. She shuddered; blankness issued from it, a lack of rather than a fulfilling Darkness. A body devoid of the ghost had a similar feel; a shell, nothing more, much like the white in the naro vi-van’s chamber.

Empty and bleak. Did that represent Kenosera’s grandmother?

Lorgan crouched down next to the orb. “This should be brimming with Darkness’s Blessing,” he whispered. “This looks like the dosiv. It’s the sacred object Veer Tul supposedly gave the first vi-van who rediscovered Black Temple during the Beast’s reign.”

“I don’t understand,” Vantra said, discomfort welling. “Veer Tul had to have known something was wrong if she drained his holy vessel.”

“Darkness doesn’t imbue this personally. There is a flame in the courtyard he renews every five years, and the vi-van use that to rejuvenate the holy objects in their keeping. Or so I’ve read. It wouldn’t be the first time historians were wrong about religious practices.”

The building rocked as another low, gritty rumble raced past.

Prompted by worry, Vantra crept to the balcony’s edge. The room’s purple glow came from five Darkness fires burning in metallic bowls positioned on sleek, vase-like bases that looked like glass. The corners of the square tops curved up, acting like claws to hold the containers in place. Railings of the same shiny material ran from each base, with openings in the middle of the span to allow beings to walk to the altar from the five rows of theater-style stone benches. Each aisle had a wooden arch with a purple flag embroidered with a unique symbol; a stylized snake, a broken wall, a temple, an orb, a spear. Did the symbols denote temple hierarchy?

Laken rested on the black glass altar in the center, the back of his head to the seating, his hair piled messily on the velvet pillow. A tapestry of Veer spreading Darkness across the land covered the front and trailed onto the black carpet runner. Sitting to the side of the carpet were older beings huddled into each other, some weeping, some stiff with righteous resolution.

The kidnapped elders?

Vantra stuck her head between the two balusters that held a flag and peered beneath; fifteen guards faced the doorway, regular spears in hand, silent and ready to protect their ill-gotten victims. Lorgan copied her, then tapped her shoulder, and they pulled back.

“How much did you read about this temple in my notes?” he asked. She shrugged; she could not recall, as Laken’s pull filled her and drove sane thought away. “The vi-van take sacred spaces in here very seriously, and to contaminate this one with guards and kidnap victims is antithetical to what I’ve read and what I experienced during my last visit. The Black Light is the holiest place because Veer Tul created the altar. There’s a lot wrong here, Vantra.”

She sent a zinging probe to Laken, hoping to soften his demanding presence. She needed to think beyond his call. “I can get down there in Ether form, but grabbing Laken means employing Physical Touch.”

Lorgan eyed the room, then crouched and crawled to the edge. Confused, Vantra did the same.

No. Oh no. A nymph with dark green hair, tea green skin, and nails the length of her palm waltzed into the room and stopped in front of the altar as the elders cowered from her, whimpering. Temmisere, the ghost who attacked Kjaelle on the island. Was Moragaray there? Oubliette?

Laken’s vicious voice reached them. “I don’t care who you are,” he seethed. “I don’t care what offer you bring. I’m not bowing to your overlord. I didn’t follow a syimlin when alive, and I’d rather join the Final Death than choose one now.”

Temmisere raised her hand, her fingers creating a methodical wave. Katta had told Kjaelle that the woman meant for her essence injuries to severely harm her, maybe send her to the Final Death. Would the prohibitions against attacking an UnRedeemed work on one who had the backing of an ex-syimlin?

“Lorgan, I’m going down.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I know nymph magic. I know how—”

“Yes, which means you can protect Laken from her and anyone chasing you.” She sucked in a breath. “I’ll throw him up here.”

Lorgan blinked and rapidly shook his head. “Vantra—”

“Then go get the shard and I’ll do what I can for the elders. Kenosera said it’s on the opposite side of the temple. That hallway should take you there. Promise me.”

“No! Vantra—”

Another rumble vibrated the building. Whatever caused it, they needed to leave before it brought the temple down on their heads.

“So this isn’t a good idea.”

She thinned her essence until a bare thread of connection held her together. She had a task; she needed to focus on it and only it, to keep her presence masked until she reached her Chosen.

“Vantra, are you listening? Temmisere—”

She would whisk down the flag, float to Laken, trigger Physical Touch, grab him, throw him, face Temmisere. She would whisk down the flag, float to Laken, trigger Physical Touch, grab him, throw him, face Temmisere. She would whisk down the flag, float to Laken, trigger Physical Touch, grab him, throw him, face Temmisere.

Long black hair. There.

“Uvron eucton.” She grabbed Laken’s tresses. The nymph whirled from menacing the elders, rage slashing her face. Vantra threw, propelling him with a shield spell she hoped cushioned him.

“VANTRAAAAAA!” Laken screamed.

Lorgan’s magic reached for the spinning head as Temmisere struck at her with a shrill shriek.

“Rive eucton.” Vantra snaked backwards, the fingers grazing the air in front of her. The Nevemere scattered to the stone benches, and she would work to keep the nymph from nearing them.

“Child, Rezenarza’s not here,” the woman seethed, lunging for her. “He tastes your darkness and wants more. But I am, and I find you sour.”

A compliment, surely.

Guards yelled and rushed to the altar, craning their necks up. Hopefully Lorgan had already run away, but she could not check. She raised shields and reinforced them as Temmisere scratched at her, the lengths of her nails glistening with green magic she knew would harm her. Look what it did to Kjaelle, a seasoned fighter and older ghost with millennia of spell practice?

Her opponent jerked back as the purple light within the room pulsed. The guards covered their eyes, as if the illumination was too bright to see. She attempted to slip past them, but the nymph shot in front of her, raking her shields. The protections shattered, and Vantra set another, and another; the ghost tore through them, faster than she could add layers.

She bounced behind the altar, racing through scenarios. She could return to the balcony, but Temmisere, as a ghost, would follow. That would endanger Lorgan and Laken and the shard, and she refused to do that. She could flee through the guards, using them as a shield, but she had no idea where to go after that. Drifting through the walls would lead somewhere. So would phasing through the floor, but the dread accompanying the thought stayed her.

What if she attempted the transparent hiding she used to escape from Nolaris? Would the enemy perceive her?

She arched back as Temmisere’s hand slashed through her shields. The nymph laughed, driving her towards the benches and the beings unable to protect themselves from her.

Wood cracked. Stone burst past Vantra. The building shuddered, and the guards screamed. The tips of vines snaked around her and tightened her arms to her body, Physical to Ethereal, and yanked her away.