Forest of Ruin (Age of Legends 3)

As he passed her, she murmured, "I must admit, I do rather like the sound of that better."

He grunted and continued past her into the cave. She glanced at Tova, who made it through the gap with his fur just brushing the sides.

Ashyn continued behind Tova and Ronan as they followed Edwyn, who now carried a lit torch. The passage was narrow and winding, as if hacked from the rock itself, and soon they were in near darkness, the torch flickering, the air thin. Then Edwyn stopped, and they were in a small room with no doors. No exits.

Edwyn reached up and grabbed what looked like a chunk of rock. When he pulled, there was a click, and he pushed at the wall. A door-shaped piece opened.

Edwyn walked through. Ashyn started after him. Ronan rocked forward as if to stop her, but only motioned that she should take out her dagger. She did, as she stepped into . . .

"Oh!" she said, stumbling back as she came face-to-face with a skull peering from the dirt. A human skull. An entire skeleton, actually, embedded in the wall.

Edwyn let out a word in a foreign language. It sounded like a curse.

"My apologies, child. I'm so accustomed to it that I never thought to warn you."

"You're accustomed to corpses hanging from walls?" Ronan said as his gaze traveled across seven bodies, in various states of decay, all upright, as if they were part of the walls themselves.

"It's to discourage anyone who manages to get that hidden door open," Edwyn said carefully, as if trying not to snap at Ronan. "The locals are very superstitious. In their lore, there is a demonic spirit that lures people into caves and underground caverns, devours them, and hangs their bodies for decoration." He waved at the corpses. "Like so. Now I'm afraid this next part is a little unsettling. Ronan? Would you help me remove these three bodies? They're tied around the necks and limbs. Ashyn? You may wish to turn away for this."

Instead, Ashyn stepped to the nearest skeleton he'd indicated and began unfastening the ties. It was not, admittedly, the most pleasant task, but these three bodies were dry and mostly mummified.

Once all three were removed, Edwyn had Ronan set them aside. Then he opened the doorway they'd been covering. He walked through first with the torch. Then Ashyn and Tova. Ronan came through last and then Edwyn raised the torch and--

Ronan breathed a curse. It was one Ashyn had heard from him before, and would never repeat, given that it was a very impious reference to the goddess's anatomy. Under the circumstances, he could be forgiven for it. Even Ashyn whispered, "By the ancestors," under her breath as she stared at the cavern before them.

Ronan sheathed his sword and walked to a pile that glittered in the torchlight. He dug in, lifted his hands, and watched the gold and silver and red and blue sift through his fingers. Then he shook his head, dumped the remainder, and wiped his hands against his trousers as if they'd been contaminated.

"It's a trick," he said. "An illusion."

"Did it feel like an illusion?" Edwyn asked. "Look closer. I have a feeling you're quite adept at telling real from fake."

Ashyn stared at the pile. Golden coins and necklaces and armbands. And jewels. Every color of jewels. It wasn't simply one pile either. More stretched into the darkness.

"Go on," Edwyn said. "Taste it or scratch it or whatever your sort do to distinguish real from counterfeit."

Your sort. Ashyn tensed, ready to jump to Ronan's defense. But Ronan stared at the pile, and in his face, Ashyn no longer saw the brash and audacious young warrior-thief.

She saw a casteless boy risking his life for a few of these coins, dreaming of a pile a tenth this size, of what it could buy, the life it could buy, the freedom to tell his family he was done with thieving and conning.

The whole pile? That was not merely freedom for his family but from the stain of his ancestors. With one of these piles, he could buy caste. Warrior caste. Buy back his birthright. Bequeath a better life to his children and his siblings.

Ronan took a handful of gold and jewels, and he did not test it. He simply stared at it, his eyes dark with hunger and need and longing. He rose, still clutching that small cache of treasure, and he turned to her, with that same look on his face. Hunger and need and longing. He stood there, hand extended, offering it to her. Then he snapped as if from a trance and threw the gold and jewels aside so hard the echo pinged through the cavern.

"Let's go, Ash," he said, pulling out his sword with one hand while propelling her toward the exit with the other. "I'll not be tricked like this. I'll not."

"Ronan . . ." She caught his hand and he pulled away, as if burned. Then he shook his head sharply and took her by the arm. Beside her, Tova whined, unsettled.

"Come on, Ash. He's setting a trap with his magics, and I'll not see you hurt." A glower Edwyn's way. "I'll not."

"Not see her hurt?" Edwyn said, his voice soft, his gaze locked hard on Ronan's. "It's not her you're worried about, boy, is it?"

Ronan's grip tightened on his sword. "It's always her. She is the reason I'm here. To watch over her. To look out for her interests."

"Because she's a mere girl and cannot be expected to do so for herself?"

"Do not twist my words against me, sorcerer."

"I'm no sorcerer, boy. I am what they call in the North a cunning man, meaning I have devoted my life to the mysteries of our world, in particular dragons. That is all."