They were back at the Stone estate and completely clueless on where they were supposed to go next. They’d gone everywhere else in the kingdom except for somewhere in Mikkel territory. It only partly made sense—judging by the way everything else was, there should be one here too. But unlike all the others, it wasn’t tied to any geographical location. Since the modern territory borders weren’t really drafted up until after Lucas took the throne, Achadus wouldn’t have known about those. Yet there was still this gap between everything else that Mikkel territory took up. Lelishara had a much longer history of being a capital than Hyasari did—it was used by the old kings, whose beginning was blurred by time.
She knew it would help to determine the rest of the possibilities with a clear head. Yet, she couldn’t stop herself from realizing that things were almost over. The end was coming and it wouldn’t be much longer until she’s forced to face reality again. The occasional lapse of remembering where she was supposed to be made that clear.
Tim and Henry were observing the stone heart, though their mumbled argument seemed to be of something completely unrelated. Tavin was content with reading something; it was the safer option than offering his help, given the mood she was in. Lydia had all the other clues laid out in front of her, along with several maps, any written notes of what they did, all desperately trying to find how it would connect to the end.
Honestly, she almost would’ve considered it a good thing that they wouldn’t be able to find it. But she knew whether or not they found it wasn’t what would change how long she stayed. Her time limit was running out quickly and, if they didn’t do this now, they’d never be able to.
She had the locations of all the other artifacts they found on the map in front of her, though even now had no way to connect the dots. She hardly noticed someone else walking in until she heard that familiar—and quite frankly ineffective—tone of disappointment.
“You’re still trying to make the connection?” Diana sighed. “I’d hoped you’d be gone by now.”
“I’d hoped you'd stayed at your friend’s house a little longer,” Lydia returned absently. “It’s a lot easier to think without you trying to complain about me. If you want me gone that badly, then you can try to be helpful and leave. Once you’re gone, I can concentrate, and you don’t have to deal with me. That way, we can both be happy.”
Andrew came in before much more could be discussed between them. “Come on, both of you. You could stand to act a little more mature around each other, can’t you?”
The grumbles were their only sign of ever agreeing.
“Diana, I believe Lustris could use some help with something outside,” Andrew mumbled.
She muttered something else that Lydia chose not to pay attention to and, just like that, Diana left again.
Andrew wandered closer to where Lydia was. “Still having trouble, I see.”
“What if I can’t figure it out?” She hated to even say it out loud. It made it all seem more real, in a way, like it was set in stone now and nothing was going to be able to change it. “I’ve been working for hours and I still haven’t gotten any further in figuring out where it’s supposed to lead us.”
Andrew gained a small smile and went to sit beside her. “Where’s that self-confident girl I raised? The Lydia I know never would have admitted defeat. She’d find something new—do absolutely everything she could and, when all those options failed, try something completely unpredictable. She never left a question unanswered and never left a secret for someone else to uncover.” His smile quickly faded, though, when he realized that it did nothing to reassure her. Perhaps deciding that there was only one way that he was going to get that daughter back, he took the map to get a closer look at it. “What have you tried so far?”
She leaned back in the chair. “Everything I could think of. None of the clues make any more sense when they’re all put together and there’s nothing that would connect more of the artifacts together. Those marks are pretty much as exact of a location as it can get, but they don’t match up to anything. There’s no other ruins nearby and they don’t connect to make anything—not shapes, not constellations. The only thing I haven’t tried is going back to the Archives and seeing if there’s something there that we somehow didn’t find earlier.”
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“Do you know what the creator’s goal was when he made this? What he hoped to achieve by setting all of this up and letting someone else enjoy the adventure it created?”
“He did it with his love because he felt like someone was going to need it… It was his way of making a difference so that he’d be remembered when he died.”
“His name?”
“Achadus.”
“His love?”
“Dree.”
To her surprise, Andrew began digging through some of the other maps around her. “Do you remember when we traveled to Tillai together? We tried everything we could think of but we still hadn’t gotten any further into the ruin. Then it was by your suggestion that we think the whole thing through like the person who’d built it. We found there was a system to everything that we hadn’t realized before, because we had thought of it as outsiders. But once we’d thought of it like the creator, we had it all solved and had the artifact with us within the hour.”
“Do you… think this is something similar..?”
“It’s as worth a shot as any.” He continued to look through all of the maps. “Where was he from?”
“A really old town in Xannon territory. It’s been abandoned since his death.”
“Dree?”
“There’s a pretty good chance she’s Eldrianna.”
Andrew grinned when he pulled out the map he’d been looking for. But instead of looking at the map itself, he flipped it around and showed her the rune scribbled in one of the corners. “It may be a simplified version of the old rune for ‘dark.’ If you start here and follow this path, it’ll match up near completely.” He traced the spots on Lydia’s map, letting her see it. “And since you said they were all general locations, that can explain any differences. It’s just missing one piece: the final mark should be right around here.” He pointed to a part of Mikkel territory that wasn’t too far from where they were.
She glanced at Tavin. “Why didn’t you mention this?”
“You almost yelled at me,” he mumbled back. “It was better to leave you alone…”
No longer distracted and able to actually consider what she’d done, she said, “I’m sorry about that. I just want to see this through to the end and… for a while there, it didn’t look like we were going to. But now we have a pretty good idea of where we’re going to be heading next.”
He slowly nodded, but it didn’t assure her; it hadn’t been enough for him, she could tell, yet there was nothing more she could think of saying. The only thing that they could do was actually see this through to the end.
Lydia began gathering all of the maps back up with the help of Andrew. All she needed to do was give the boys a glance before they all got up and prepared whatever they would need.
“Do you think this is doing what its creator hoped it would?” Andrew asked casually, getting up to put a few things away.
After a moment of consideration, she nodded. “I think it is.”
“I was wondering if you’d say no,” he mused, “to try to keep yourself here. You don’t have very long. Make peace with it now—if you spend the entire time mourning the end, nothing’s going to change.”
“I’m going to go help the boys,” Lydia decided slowly. She took everything else she could put away while she was at it and went to leave.
She didn’t know how she felt about what he said to her when she turned away. “I’ll see you when you wake up.”
There was no one there when she looked back. The clasp was limiting how much power it used now—creating only what was necessary in hopes of lasting as long as it needed to. It wasn’t the most pleasant of things to note. Similarly, everything she’d been holding before was gone now. She decided to simply tell herself it saved her the trouble and went straight to where the boys were.
They didn’t seem to have been doing anything until she came in. And despite having nothing with them, Henry announced, “We’ve made sure we had everything we needed.”
“I’m bringing all of the other artifacts we found along the way,” Tim added. “I figured they might come in handy.”
It took Tavin a moment longer to say anything. “If this is the end, then do you have Melai’s ashes ready?”
Lydia pulled out the vial she’d put the ashes in. “Everything’s ready to fulfill their wish.” She began to take the lead in leaving the estate, mumbling, “It’s finally time to put this whole thing to an end…”