Once everything was packed, the three of us stood there for a moment, the noise of the black market fading behind us. Nysera and Iloyn exchanged a glance before turning to me at the same time.
"So," Nysera said.
"Now what?" Iloyn added.
The question landed harder than I expected because they were right. I had dragged us into chaos, sparked a chase, revealed powers I didn't understand… and I had no real plan.
Not yet.
I forced myself to slow my breathing and think. Panic wouldn't help us now. "There's an inn not far from here," I said finally. "We will rest and think and we will decide our next move."
Neither of them argued, and that alone told me how exhausted we all were.
The inn was quiet compared to the market, its lanterns dim and welcoming as we stepped inside. We paid for a room and climbed the narrow stairs, the wooden floorboards creaking under our weight. The room itself was plain with two beds pushed against opposite walls, a small table, and a single chair but after everything we'd just survived, it felt like a luxury.
The moment the door closed behind us,I dragged the desk into the center of the room as the wood scraped loudly across the floor. I spread the map across its surface, smoothing it flat with trembling fingers. Then, without thinking, I set the silver sword down on top of it, pinning the parchment in place like a paperweight.
The blade gleamed faintly in the lantern light.
We gathered around the table and the room suddenly started feeling smaller because whatever path we chose next from here, there was no turning back now.
"Nysera, Where did you say the temple of water lilies was? That is our destination"
Nysera pointed towards the symbol of a temple surrounded by blue ink that resembled water.
Then she spoke, "This is where it is, but this is not the map of Raveneo. I have seen this map before but I cannot pinpoint where–"
She was cut off by Ilyon speaking as he pulled out a map from his satchel, "This is the map of Raveneo, maybe we can find some clues."
We nodded as he laid the map beside the other map and we started looking but none of that made any sense. It was so different from what we had in hand. Just before Ilyon pointed out something.
"Look," Iloyn said, leaning over the table. His finger traced the faded lines of the ancient map, following the jagged curves of mountains and the thin veins of rivers. "See this? Even though these regions look close together here, they follow the exact same pattern as this section on the map of Raveneo."
He was right.
Once I looked closely, I couldn't unsee it. The mountains, the rivers, almost every landmark was the same. The only difference was distance. On Raveneo's map, they were spread far apart, separated by vast stretches of land and sea. Here, they were compressed, layered unnaturally close together.
Nysera leaned in, eyes narrowing as she studied the markings. Slowly, a smile spread across her face.
"Now this is getting interesting," she murmured. "You're right, Iloyn. If that's the case… this might not be a regional map at all."
She looked up at us.
"This could be a map of the ancient continents."
"Ancient continents?" Iloyn and I echoed at the same time, lifting our heads toward her.
Nysera hummed, unfazed, as if she'd been waiting for that reaction. She reached into her backpack and pulled out an old, weathered journal, its leather cover cracked with age. She laid it gently on the desk beside the map.
"My grandfather used to study pre-unification history," she said, flipping through brittle pages filled with sketches and notes. "From what he taught me, this layout matches descriptions of the ancient continent"
Then she stopped.
Her gaze lifted slowly, settling on me.
"Elio," she said, her voice calm but cutting, "where exactly did you get this map?"
The room felt tighter all of a sudden.
"This," she continued, barely able to contain herself now, "is something I've been searching for my entire life." Her breath hitched. "This is the map to the Twelve Lost Temples."
"My grandfather died believing he was chasing ghosts," she said quietly. "They mocked him. Said he was obsessed and delusional." Her hands curled around the edge of the table. "But if this map is real, if these temples still exist then he wasn't wrong. And I won't let his life's work be dismissed as a fool's dream."
Iloyn broke the silence. "And what lies inside these temples?"
Nysera straightened, fire returning to her eyes. "No one knows. Ancient power. Lost artifacts. Knowledge erased from history itself." She hesitated, then smiled, almost breathless. "Some legends say whoever unlocks them could reshape the entire continent of Raveneo. Even finding them would change history. Thats why my Grandpa was so crazy about finding them."
She looked at me like a child staring at a miracle.
I could feel both of them watching me now. Until this moment, they'd probably thought I was just another reckless soul chasing glory or meaning.
The truth was far more dangerous and I wasn't ready to give it to them. So I lied.
"I took this map from someone I fought," I said evenly. "It's my only lead back to him. And my only way to get my wife back."
Their reactions were instant.
"What do you mean?" they asked together.
I swallowed.
"She was taken from me," I said, the words scraping out of my chest. "Ripped out of my life by forces far beyond anything I understood at the time. I was powerless, so I couldn't stop it." My hands clenched at my sides. "The man responsible believed the temples held something he needed. Something only they could grant."
I met their eyes, one by one.
"So I'll raise those temples before he does," I said quietly. "I'll find what he's looking for. And I'll trade gods, monsters, or my own life if I have to but I'm bringing her home."
The room stayed silent.
Iloyn let out a slow breath, then laughed under his breath. "Fame, danger, history, and a cause worth bleeding for?" He rested a hand on his sword. "You've just turned a wandering adventurer into a man with a purpose."
I nodded slowly. "The book I was searching for," I admitted. "The man who died, Henry -- sold it before I could get to him."
Neither of them spoke, so I kept going,"It kind of talked about different rituals to raise them back from their ruins… Sort of stuff like substitutes , ingredients. I can only remember some of the stuff from the back of my head."
Nysera raised her eyes so I continued, " I am not sure if any of you are familiar with Sword of Killian and –"
That got Ilyon's attention as he raised his hand and said, "Wait – Sword of the legendary hero Killian?"
I nodded. "That one. And others. Cloves of the Garmous Tree. The Ring of Loth. The Claw of Gorlens. There were more."
Iloyn frowned. "If we don't have the rituals and we don't have the ingredients, then how are we supposed to raise the temples?"
Nysera shook her head, already thinking three steps ahead. "Rituals follow patterns. A certain ritual will always ask for certain ingredients. At least that's what my grandpa taught me. If we identify the ritual type, we can trace the ingredients."
My heart skipped. "Water lilies," I said suddenly. "That phrase keeps coming back to me. A ritual of water lilies."
Nysera's eyes lit up.
"Well, that narrows it down." She flipped through her journal again. "Having a mad grandfather comes in handy sometimes," she muttered as she flipped through page after page which were thick with ink, it contained diagrams, notes, symbols layered over one another until the paper was almost black.
"This," she said, tapping the page. "Here's the ritual."
She turned the journal toward us. Along the margin, a list had been scribbled in a careful, almost obsessive hand.
"If the map is accurate," she continued, glancing at the parchment spread across the table, "then the first ingredient we need is the Turmeric of Wild Ice."
She pointed to a mark near the edge of the map.
"It's the closest location to us," she said. "From there, we can move on to the Claw of Gorlens and whatever else the ritual demands."
The room fell quiet again, but this time it wasn't heavy with doubt. It was charged with direction.
For the first time since everything had fallen apart, I wasn't just chasing ghosts.
"Before we move any further," Iloyn said carefully, "what exactly are your Skirr powers, Elio?"
I'd been hoping it wouldn't come up. Not yet. The truth was, even I didn't understand what had happened back there and if I wanted them to follow me, I couldn't afford to look like a leader who didn't even know himself.So I tried to sidestep it.
"Does anyone else here have Skirr powers?" I asked instead.
Iloyn snorted. "If I did, I wouldn't be an adventurer."
He wasn't wrong.
Skirr were rare and dangerously so. Powers were passed down through pure bloodlines with each family manifesting them in different ways. Officially, those powers were always meant to be kept with the nobels. Unofficially… nobles were still human and since some couldn't keep it in their pants, Skirr blood even though scattered into the world was thin enough to hide but strong enough to resurface generations later.
Sometimes it stayed dormant but sometimes it exploded into existence without warning multiple generations after.
And when it did, it changed everything.Those born with Skirr abilities were elevated quickly and pulled into government roles, military command, positions of power others could never touch. Not because they were trusted, but because they were feared.
I exhaled slowly.
"I don't know the limits of it," I admitted at last. "I didn't even know I had anything until today."
The room went quiet.
Nysera studied me, not with doubt but with interest. "Then whatever manifested back there wasn't trained," she said. "Which means it wasn't controlled."
"That makes it more dangerous," Iloyn added.
Neither of them laughed and that was when I understood something unsettling.
The power I'd unleashed wasn't just a secret anymore.
It will become a problem.