Scooting around a pew she’d run into, Adna’s silhouette struggled through the room, getting caught again before Timbrelle spoke.

“That was fast. Fede said Tuna would take care of you. Did you sneak away?” She lead Adna by the hand to sit in the candlelight of Fede’s office.

“Everyone was stuck. I followed after you when no one moved.” She shrugged.

Fede narrowed his eyes at Adna. “You were unaffected by my Crystalurgy?”

“Is that what you studied at the library?” Adna asked Timbrelle who nodded. She turned back to Fede with a shrug. “I guess not.”

“How?” He demanded. “I am behind only our God himself in terms of amethystic power. You should be like a bug under my thumb right now.”

“Charming.” Was her only response to the now irate man.

“Sorry, Timbrelle. I didn’t realize it was a secret meeting. I can go wait with the others. You may need to lead me out though.”

“Stay. He just told me I ate an eyeball.”

Adna’s eyes went wide. She whispered “The diamond…”

“Enough.” Fede pinched his nose bridge. “Truly, our God has an indecipherable sense of humor. I will assist you to the extent of my patience, so I advise you to tread lightly if you require my help.”

“That sounds pretty reasonable.” Timbrelle conceded.

“Then let’s begin. Follow me. Bring the candelabra if you require it.”

“I might just stay here. It’s really late.” Adna wiggled further down in the chair and folded her arms. From experience, Timbrelle expected that she was asleep by the time they left the room.

With candelabra in hand, the rainbow room was transformed. The aura stayed low like they were wading through a vivid fog. Above the aura cloud white marble walls disappeared into the darkness far overhead. It seemed as though there was no ceiling, that the walls extended up into the night sky. Stars hung above them that looked to be gems themselves, affixed to the ceiling a great distance away.

“Where does this place exist?” Timbrelle asked. They’d entered this space through a door that once led outside. They couldn’t be in the city.

“Deep underground. Where, precisely, is a mystery. Keep up.” Fede answered from ten paces ahead. The difference in size and stride allowed Timbrelle to keep a comfortable “forest pace” through the many passageways of the temple.

Coming to a stop in front of a floor-to-ceiling slab of solid obsidian he allowed her to take it in.

There was nothing much to see except the smug look on the man’s face. It was obscured by the overwhelming shine of the amethyst on his forehead. Collarbones encrusted in yet more amethyst flashed a purple blur when he moved. It made him difficult to look at, like she needed to get her prescription checked.

Why was she looking at him? Hadn’t they been looking at the obsidian slab? Timbrelle blinked and tried to refocus on the slab.

Fede’s self importance oozed out of him. Smirking looked to be a practiced facial expression. It irked her. Even more so than before, he curled one side of his mouth up into a smile of vindication.

Wait. Something wasn’t right. Wasn’t she trying to look at the slab? She pulled herself away from Fede to inspect the smooth surface of the stone. Once again she found herself back at Fede.

“What is this thing?”

It was… wrong. Her brain would only allow her to glimpse it from the corner of her eye. It wasn’t like a mirror. No, the surface was uneven, breaking her reflection into blobs. Its purpose was obfuscated by the plainness of the rectangular slab. Even more so by the impossibility that was looking directly at it.

“Our God left it here for us. If you don’t know what it is, I’m surprised at what He considers His ‘chosen’.” He said. “I’m struck at your lack of basic knowledge.”

Timbrelle didn’t feel confident that if she responded she would not throttle this man. Instead, she turned on her heel to continue her tour by herself. Directly ahead of them in the spacious domed room stood what must have once been an altar. Gems of the most brilliant white encrusted what was visible. The rest had been covered in a messy casing of cooled lava. A metamorphic frosting. On a highly religious cake by the looks of it.

“What was the altar used for?” Timbrelle asked Fede.

“You don’t even know what the—“ he began haughtily.

“Wow, Fede. That help you pledged is proving real helpful.” She interrupted without looking back.

There was a long silence before she heard a heavy sigh. “The altar. It was built with the original temple. As you can see, it’s entirely unusable now. The volcanic rock appears to have leaked in through the windows at the height of the dome.”

Now that she looked around, she could see globs of dried lava rock radiating out in a circle from the initial impact. She’d tripped over a few taller splatters. This lead her to focus on the floor when he had pointed out the top of the dome. Once again, the candlelight didn’t reach the height of the soaring ceilings but the tip of a monstrous lava stalactite poked into the sphere of illumination.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

With difficulty clear in his voice, he continued. “Yost Proper, once called Nerr, removed the Temple of Our God in the tenth century. This— this disrespect,” he gestured sharply to the desecrated altar, “was the gratitude of Nerr for our God protecting it as His city. It is unclear the cause. There is no documentation in the temple or greater world.”

“That’s… awful. Something so profane happened to a God’s temple? The city’s god?” It surprised her, the conviction in her words. But looking around at the black slop fused to the dazzling chromatic floor, there was no other word for it. It was profane. A strangely religious sensation she’d never encountered.

“How was the altar used?” She caught a whiff of the white jewels and coughed on the sudden drool. The jewels seemed to be slightly loosened from their casings. Loose enough to pick up. Loose enough to eat.

She needed to escape this sinners paradise.

“You know nothing.” Fede studied her. The words lacked his derision.

A wave of exhaustion plowed over her. How many times had she heard that? “I don’t know how to make that more clear, Fede. I didn’t want to be ‘chosen’. I did nothing to earn it. I don’t want your position. I’ve been lost in the Dorark, on the run for months, commissioned by a real god to find something that doesn’t exist—“ She turned to face Fede, making no effort to hide the tears that stung her eyes. “I’m just so tired. I want to go home. Even now, I want to sit down but I know if I touch those gems on the floor, I’m gonna try to eat them. They smell so damn good. And that’s just the first in a long list of things that have changed about me! I used to need sleep, trees never attacked me, I wasn’t meeting gods, and all the way down here at the bottom of the list: rocks used to smell like rocks!”

She gasped for air. Fingernails dug into her arms where they had been folded across her chest.

All around them, the jewels of the dome flickered to life at a dull but slowly increasing glow of visible light. Starting from the bottom and ascending, a soft luminosity climbed inch by inch through the gems.

“I didn’t mean to get stuck here! I don’t even remember how it happened. I’m not special. It’s not that I’m some almighty mythical figure—it’s the opposite! Nerrus gave me the diamond so that I wouldn’t die from a stupid little ruby chewing up my insides! Not because of my power or potential. He called me pathetic! I’m not a threat to anyone!”

The walls were surging with light.

Ping!

Your hidden ability has—

“Silence.” Fede commanded, taking advantage of her pause for breath.

The window blinked away.

He pinched his nose once more. “Enough. I’ve heard enough, child. You are not the adversary I previously thought. I’ll admit I was wrong.”

Still regal in his silken robe and inlaid amethyst, Fede approached Timbrelle. “I see now that you are but a child. Hush. Do not deny it. Your soul is damaged and frayed at such a young age.”

To Timbrelle’s shock, the large, snooty man scooped her into an embrace. A tight one. Her elbows relocated into her lungs as the imposing character hugged around her arms. “Is that any better?” He asked, placing her dangling legs back onto the floor. “That… uh, method works for my grand-daughter.”

“H-how old is your grand-d-daughter?” She stammered, catching her breath. Fear that ran rampant a moment before died to Frede’s surprise attack. As if she just missed the bottom step of a staircase and caught herself, she felt a bewildered and panicked relief.

“Seven… next year.” Fede’s deep olive complexion flushed.

Timbrelle cleared her throat, nodded and offered a thumbs-up. “Good stuff.“

In the past, the months in the Dorark and however long with cake, she’d felt nothing approaching paternal affection. It was a strangely welcome feeling. Pleasant.

“Ahem. Please allow me a brief span to study the room.”

Timbrelle watched the High Priest of Nerrus approach a cluster of lavender amethyst and place his hand over the lot. This method of reading energies had been briefly outlined in Crystalurgy. One placed their hand onto their aligned aurora stones, siphoning minuscule amounts of energy to “taste”. Specialized aurors could taste the age, gender and something called a soul shadow of a person by pulling energy from stones they’d used. The concept came late in her studies. Internal vs External Crystalurgy. Her understanding from the pitiful few pages she read on the topic was limited. At least for Timbrelle, it boiled down to “do you touch it or do you eat it?” Unless Fede was about to pop one of those gems off the wall and catch it in his mouth like a grape, she had to assume it was the external kind of Crystalurgy.

The room began noticeably dimming before Fede returned. “I understand now… somewhat. Tell me, first, why do you fear I will ask you where you’re from?”

“How do you know that?” She breathed. Adrenaline shot through her veins.

“Calm yourself. I could gather little else from the aura you left behind. The panic that’s been seared into your soul through trauma leaks from your energies. Without needing to taste it, I knew it in your soul.“

“And-and where I’m from?“ She lead.

“Your aura speaks of missing home but you’re so convinced it should remain secret that even your subconscious aura restricts the information. To be frank, it is fascinating. Restricting the soul shadow like that shouldn’t be possible without high level training or…”

“Or trauma?” Timbrelle finished for him.

“Traumatic Conditioning, to be exact. It is a method of training Crystalurgical instincts. The aim was to develop aurors that could use Crystalurgy as if it were innate from conception. It was hugely successful. Until it wasn’t. But listen to me ramble while we still have a whole temple to visit.”

It was hard to believe that this once insufferable asshole was truly capable of summoning such a fatherly air. Timbrelle felt her body relaxing as Fede paraded her through each and every bathroom, ballroom and bedchamber. The majority of the gargantuan building was rendered unusable by the many tons of liquid rock that had filtered in through the outermost hallways. Each time she saw it she was filled with the same disgust at the black sludge that hardened over every surface in its path. It wasn’t right. Much like the obsidian slab.

Despite the loss of such a colossal portion of the temple, there remained four bedrooms, six bathrooms, a library, ballroom, functional kitchen and an assortment of random repurposed rooms like Fede’s office. There was no more talk of the dome. Timbrelle felt the old man avoid the topic as he repeatedly led her past the room during their tour.

From a hallway away, peals of low snores echoed through the temple. Volume seemed to be positively correlated to the depth of Adna’s slumber. The candelabra revealed the white haired woman, arms still folded, leg slung over the arm of the chair. The other boot sat on Fede’s desk, square in the middle.

Timbrelle smiled at the exceptionally old man’s disgust at the sight.

“I don’t think I’ll be changing my mind on her.” He grumbled.

“Most people haven’t.” She laughed and collected her companion.