The temple swallowed sound.
Our footsteps rang out, but the echoes were swallowed too quickly, as though the walls didn't want to share them. Light slanted in from high windows, catching on the dust that drifted lazily in the air. Statues lined the hall, tall, robed figures with stern faces, some missing heads or arms. Their empty eyes seemed to follow us.
I didn't like it.
Neither did Ayesha nor Abu—they clung to my sides like shadows.
At the far end, an archway yawned open. Something pulled at me from beyond it, a strange gravity in my chest. I stepped through.
The chamber beyond was smaller, circular, lit only by a single beam of sunlight from an opening high above. In the center sat a man on a raised stone platform, still as a carving. His robes were layers of sand and ash, his hair silver-white. But it was his eyes that caught me, golden, bright, and unblinking. Beside him lay a staff of polished bronze with swirling arcane symbols adorning its length.
