Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 08 - Ghost in the Mask by Jonathan Moeller Page B

eerie green light reflected in her blue eyes.
    “You are coming to me, child,” said Laeria. “I can see it.”
    “You’re dead,” said Caina. “I killed you and you are dead.”
    Laeria smiled. “I never lived. I never died. And when my purpose is fulfilled…ah, all the world will die. Starting with you, I think.”
    Caina awoke and sat up with a gasp. She was naked and wrapped in a blanket, the ground hard beneath her, and for a terrified moment of disorientation she could not remember where she was or how she had gotten there.
    Then she felt Corvalis’s arms around her, and the memories came back. The road. The bandits. Jurius with his black dagger, the blade gleaming with green light.
    The same green light she had seen in the dream.
    “A nightmare?” said Corvalis, his voice low.
    Caina hesitated.
    “I don’t know,” she said at last.

Chapter 6 - The Surge
    Kylon climbed the thousand steps to the crest of the Pyramid of Storm. 
    He did not know if it was really a thousand steps. But the Pyramid rose a thousand feet over the city, towering over the other ziggurats. Small shrines and statues lined the massive pyramid’s tiers, honoring the gods of storm and sea, or commemorating great heroes of the Kyracian past. 
    Including some who had been summoned to speak before the Surge. 
    Even through his fear for Thalastre’s life, Kylon felt a great deal of foreboding. Few were ever summoned before the great oracle, and many did not survive the charges she laid upon them. The Surge was the supreme power in New Kyre. She often made prophecies of the weather and the potential futures before New Kyre, but she rarely took a direct hand in the city’s politics. 
    But when she did, her word was law.
    For the Surge’s prophecies were never wrong. 
    The priestess walked next to Kylon, showing no sign of exhaustion despite the steep stairs. Her eyes shifted from blue to green to gray to black, over and over again, but whenever she looked at him, they went solid black. 
    “Did the Surge say what she wished of me?” said Kylon.
    The priestess looked at him, eyes like black holes in her face.
    “The Surge commanded your presence,” said the priestess. “She will make her wishes known to you.” She tilted her head to the side, considering. “Yet…it seems you stand at the heart of the storm, that your choices have put you in the path of the coming destruction.” She looked away. “But I should not presume to speak for the Surge.”
    Kylon’s foreboding increased.
    At last the stairs ended, and Kylon stood at the Pyramid’s crest, the most sacred place in New Kyre, the city spread out beneath him in a maze of ziggurats and mansions and tenements and warehouses. A small, square temple of gray stone stood atop the Pyramid, its sides ringed in columns, its walls carved with scenes showing the gods of storm and sea granting the first Archons of Old Kyrace authority over the waves.
    The Sanctuary of the Surge.
    “She awaits you within, High Seat,” said the priestess, stopping before the dark square of the entrance. “Go at once.”
    Kylon took a deep breath to still his fear, and strode into the Sanctuary.
    Within the Sanctuary was unadorned. A square pool of water filled the central third of the chamber, glowing with pale silver light. Images danced and flickered across the water like reflections. Kylon saw distant scenes within the pool, glimpses of swords and mountains. A black city upon a hill and a withered corpse wearing a golden mask. A girl kneeling in the street and weeping over her slain father. 
    Immense sorcerous power radiated from the pool. 
    And for just a moment, Kylon glimpsed Caina’s face within the pool, her eyes like disks of blue ice.
    “Ah. I thought as much.”
    Kylon’s head snapped up at that voice. 
    Because it had been three voices speaking in perfect harmony. 
    The first was the voice of a young girl, calm and serene. The second was the voice of a woman at the height of her