Navigating the forest was hard enough with only the pale light of the lantern, but despite trying to move further away from the leyline itself, the compass continued to be drawn towards it. When they had been high above on the pathway, it had managed to guide them, only flickering occasionally, not that they could have changed direction if they had needed to.

Lewis thought that the depths of the forest that hid the Cimant tribe away had been dense, but this was like nothing else. Russell had begrudgingly relinquished the lead so that he and Captain Caldwell could try to cut them a path through the dense vines and curtains of moss that hung from the trees.

So far, they hadn't come into contact with anyone or any other creatures. They could hear them, though, shuffling around out of sight. Lewis had the same feeling he had just before he first met Nirra: that someone or something was watching them closely. David was constantly on the swivel, casting the lantern light around whenever there was a sound close to them.

The ground trembled beneath them, pausing and then beginning again. It kept the same pattern, with each tremor getting slightly stronger. 'What do you think is causing that?' Louise asked quietly, appearing at his side as best as the dense foliage would allow.

'It's something big walking,' Russell said before Lewis could answer. He held up one hand, counting the seconds between tremors on his fingers. It was the same every time.

'Do you know much about the creatures that are down here?' Lewis asked. So far, he has been able to spout information on the leylines seemingly endlessly.

'Very little. Even less about the local fauna,' he said, putting out an arm to stop Lewis in his tracks as a giant, orange, bell-shaped flower snapped shut right where he would have been. 'Fortunately, I can see some of the dangers coming if they're close to us.'

'Clara mentioned you showed her something in a tavern somewhere about a fight,' Lewis said.

In the immediate aftermath of Clara's arrival, he hadn't had much of a chance to speak to her, but since Emily had been in the infirmary, he had been able to ask her about her story. She had told him a lot; he would like to think about everything.

There was so much he hadn't known about Russell, and hearing of her adventures in Arcadia had been fascinating. While she had been talking, Thomas had been taking extensive notes, piecing them together with what Emily, Arthur, and Captain Caldwell had mentioned from their brief visit. Lewis knew better than to ask him what he was up to while he was working, though.

'She's a good one. I'm glad she survived long enough to reach you,' he said casually.

'You didn't think she would make it?'

'I knew she would make it; I just didn't know how long it would take her. I had visions of her arriving many moons from now after travelling via who knows where. She must have taken a very direct route and, even then, moved quickly.'

'There was a small group of scouts who had been returning to the city after looking for George that found her snooping around a dark back street at night,' Lewis said. 'When she told them she was trying to find her way to the castle and that you had sent her, they brought her with them.'

'Did she give you the Dewdrop Jewel?'

'She did,' he said slowly. 'Firstly, what in the world were you thinking? Relations between ourselves and Oria were already at an all-time low before this. Secondly, just why?'

He had tried asking Clara the same questions, but, unfortunately, he believed her when she had no idea what Russell's plan had been. 'It's very complicated, but it was necessary, I promise.'

'She's fifteen; next time you want to rob one of the most secure, if not the most secure, places in the world, don't take a child with you and have them run off with whatever you take,' Lewis said. He didn't know why it made him so angry. Perhaps it was all the weight that had been put on his shoulders when he was hardly much older than her, or maybe it was just Russell's flippant personality grinding on him.

'Exactly, she's fifteen. She's quick and reasonably smart, and no one would suspect her to have something like that,' he said without even noting Lewis' tone. 'Besides, she had to get into the vaults for her own reasons, and she never would have managed that without me. It seemed like a fair trade; besides, I needed to get the jewel to you.'

'How about next time you need to get something to me, you bring it in person rather than putting an innocent life in danger?' Lewis snapped.

Russell stopped in his tracks and turned to Lewis. The look of anger on his face faded a little when he realised that he was face to face with Lewis, with the blade of the longsword Koen had delivered to him in between them. Lewis waited for him to say something as his eyes locked with Lewis'. 'Noted.'

Leaving Lewis with furrowed eyebrows, he turned away again and continued walking. Slightly behind him, Louise coughed quietly in the awkward silence. 'I appreciate it,' Lewis said, setting off again. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had when Russell's eyes locked with his, like he was searching for something deep within his mind. He desperately wanted to call him back to say something, but he bit his tongue. Without Russell, they would probably have a much tougher time navigating the leylines, and time was of the essence.

'We're coming up on something,' Captain Caldwell called back to the rest of them.

The trees seemed to be thinning slightly, with the same pale, blue glow of the leyline filtering through the vines and moss. Beneath their feet, the rock began to give way to grass, or at least it looked like grass, just with a deep reddish-purple tint to it. Everything in this place was strange, similar to what they knew from the surface, but at the same time, it was like a completely alien world.

Captain Caldwell stopped abruptly, Lewis almost crashing into the back of him. There was the sound of falling rock striking a surface far below as he looked around him. He had stopped just short of a sheer cliff edge, a whirlpool-like vortex of bright blue a hundred or so feet below. Darker, almost black patches were caught up in the bright swirling substance that made up the leyline itself. Lewis wasn't sure exactly what it was; it could just be water, but it looked much thicker, almost like a gel.

Lewis looked around. The trees almost butted right up to the cliff edge, which formed a very rough circle that looked to be about as far across as it was down. On the far side, the cliff rose steeply, with a narrow waterfall crashing down from the apex. 'This is simply astounding; I never thought I would see anything like this,' he heard Edward mutter to no one in particular as he stood at the other end of the line they had formed at the edge.

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'What is it?' Louise whispered, all of them staring down into it, transfixed by the swirling patter.

'It's a nexus,' Russell said. completely uncovered and open to the elements. This must be where Avalkan once stood.'

'What happened to it? All I've heard is that it was lost to the desert,' Lewis said. How could an entire city be lost without a trace?

'No one is really sure; it disappeared centuries ago. Some say the desert wasn't always as barren as it is now, but when that changed, everyone living there left when it became inhospitable, and over time it crumbled away, eroded by the weather and the sand storms,' Russell said. 'Others say it was a city built on the water, and it sank, never to be seen again. Whatever was left simply fell into the ground, leaving behind a crater that the sand filled over the years.'

'What do you believe?' David asked.

'I believe that cities have risen and fallen for centuries. Look at Oldiron and Arcadia, for example, as well as a whole host of other ancient cities. War destroyed some; some were abandoned when they could no longer sustain themselves; and others were reclaimed by nature through natural disasters,' he said. 'They all meet their end one way or another.'

'Whatever happened to it, there must be something left, or Edmund wouldn't be searching for it with the crown to try and resurrect Tristan,' Lewis said. 'Arden talked about a ruined temple that once held great power.'

'The Temple of Ruins, not a ruined temple,' Russell corrected him.

'You've heard of it?' Several of them asked at once. The only one who didn't seem surprised was Edward, although at this point Lewis just accepted that he knew a lot of things he wouldn't have expected.

'It's an ancient legend. Built in Avalkan, at the city's heart, was a great lighthouse. It was able to guide travellers’ home from miles away, but that was not its biggest claim. They said that at the top of it a fire burned so brightly and so powerfully that, like that lantern you hold, David, it could shed light on the things that could not be seen,' Russell said. 'The name it got, The Temple of Ruins, came from what those who guarded it claimed to see.'

'They said that, in the fire within the lighthouse, they were able to see the ruins of bygone eras but that they were also able to see much of what had yet to be built and destroyed. There is a passage deep within The Scroll of Days that was supposedly written by one of the lighthouse wardens, who claimed to have seen the fall of Avalkan itself. He also made the claim that he foresaw the lighthouse as the centre of an evil beacon sweeping across the land and pleaded with the leaders of the city to destroy it. I think I have the exact passage, if you'll give me a moment.'

Lewis raised his eyebrows at Russell as he produced a large, rather decrepit-looking scroll and a quill from an insider's pocket. As he unrolled it, the quill jumped up, beginning to scribble on the parchment at a furious pace where it had left off before. 'You just happen to have this "Scroll of Days" tucked in your pocket?' He asked in disbelief.

'It's been locked up in Oria for centuries; I thought I would take a look, and, well, here we are,' he shrugged. 'Here we go: "In the baying light that reveals all, I see a darkness cast out across the world, a burning inferno at its centre, destroying the lighthouse and all who surround it.'

'How could you just pick that up and walk off with it?' Edward demanded in disbelief. 'The Scroll of Days and the Ever-Scratching Quill are possibly the two most priceless artefacts in the world. That scroll has been used to record every prophecy and Seer's vision for centuries. I know the Ever-Scratching Quill was created by Arden, but it's still priceless.'

'That quill was created by Arden?' Lewis asked, turning the ominous warning over in his head.

'It was,' Russell said with a glance at Lewis before turning his gaze back to Edward. 'It's been sitting in the vaults for a couple of centuries; no one even really checks on it these days; they probably don't even know it's gone yet. If what they say is true and Tristan might return, then this is, without a doubt, better off out of his hands than in theirs. Emily is a Seer precursor, from what I've heard. Everything she might see in her visions would instantly be on this scroll, and he would know about it. Without the scroll, there is a chance that he can be outsmarted. I know him, and, in a straight fight, there is no one alive right now who stands a chance of defeating him.'

'I spoke with Arden; he sent Koen to me with this sword. He told me that if we can't stop him from coming back, then we have to defeat him. That sounds like there is still a way,' Lewis said as the words on the scroll flashed by seemingly on their own accord as Russell searched for the passage he had mentioned.

'Your power is still largely untapped; learning to control it will take time,' Russell said. 'Who knows how much time we have before we stand on the edge of destruction? Arden was always courageous and ever the optimist, but do you know how he died?'

'You talk like you knew them,' Lewis said. 'No, I don't, Lillian said after he shut her in the tomb at the castle; he was travelling to Arcadia to face Tristan.'

'Lillian?' Russell asked, taken aback, with a strange glint of curiosity in his eye. 'Slight build, red hair, and about five and a half feet tall? Always got a tapestry kicking about?'

It was Lewis' turn to look stunned. 'You can't be serious; you knew them?'

'I did. If Lillian is still alive, then we should probably have this discussion later,' Russell said, a sudden change in his disposition as he moved along the cliff edge, peering down into the nexus below.

'Why can't we have this discussion now?' he asked. Russell was always so evasive. 'You never said how Arden died, anyway.'

'Lillian and I have something of a history; that will have to suffice for now. As for Arden,' he said as he continued along the edge as if he were looking for something. 'He did battle with Tristan; it was a titanic clash like nothing else. It made the destruction of Oldiron look like a kid's tea party. The power they wielded between them was enough to level the streets in an instant.'

'Arden was able to deal Tristan a fatal blow. He had suspected that Tristan had been planning something but wasn't sure what. With his soul anchored in the crown, his death left an enormous power vacuum within his body. Arden was able to take some of that power and quell it, but there was so much left over that it, for all intents and purposes, levelled Arcadia in a flash. I'm sure Clara has told you what the city looks like now; all that destruction was born through Tristan's death.'

'If he were to return, how do we know he wouldn't just anchor his soul to another object, and if we killed him, we'd end up levelling another city and killing thousands?' Captain Caldwell asked.

'We don't know for certain, but I don't believe he would be able to achieve what he did last time,' Russell said. 'When he was defeated by Arden, all that power within him dissipated. He might be able to regain a portion of that at the time of his rebirth, but that core that was inside him before wouldn't be there this time; he would rely on taking the power of others.'

'I'm sure you have felt it before; after using your powers, you feel more tired and drained. There is a finite amount that we can achieve before we need to rest and recharge, and Tristan would no longer be able to do that without his core of power. The only downside to that, though, is that he could go without resting, whereas we wouldn't be able to. To answer your question, though, it would be highly unlikely that he would have anywhere near the power he did when Arden killed him, greatly reducing the resulting destruction.'

'That's reassuring to know we might be able to stop him without risking destroying an entire city,' Captain Caldwell muttered.

'Maybe we won't even have to worry about that if we can get to the temple before Edmund,' Lewis said. 'Russell, what are we looking for?'

'The way through to the other side of the waypoint must be around here somewhere,' he replied, peering around the trunks of a couple of the trees.

'What does it look like? We can all help,' Lewis said.

'It could be anything—a dais like a lot of the others, an archway, maybe a staircase.'

'What about the nexus itself?' David asked, staring down into it.

'Don't be ridiculous; you'd be obliterated before you got within ten feet of the surface of the nexus,' Russell said matter-of-factly.

'We could try at the top of the waterfall?' Louise suggested. 'If nothing else, it will give us a better overview of the area, and if there are ruins amongst the trees, it might help us spot them.'

'That's not a bad idea,' Edward said.

'Good thinking,' Lewis muttered, giving her a little nudge as he urged Russell onward along the edge of the cliff. 'We should move quickly; we don't know how long we have.'