Chapter 21: The Rite of the Hollow Temple
The temple had been built by men who believed that stone could outlast the memory of famine, of flood, of the old gods’ indifference.
Its spires showed first, punching through last year’s fire-killed scrub like the bones of a forgotten beast.
Even from half a mile away, with the sun behind them and the wind at their backs, Apollo could feel the place’s hunger.
He did not slow. If anything, he kept a dogged, childlike pace, willing the others onward with the stubbornness of a man who knew there was nothing behind them but bad weather and recent ghosts.
Nik noticed it first. He pointed with his chin, the rest of him too busy shifting most of Thorin’s half-dead weight up the slope. "Is that a watch post, or am I seeing things?"
"Temple," Lyra said, not even pretending to guess. She’d walked this part of the world before; her body settled into a wary, animal readiness as they drew near. "Old one, maybe from the time before the empire. Doubt there’s anyone left inside." But she did not speak as if she believed it.
Thorin, awake for the first time since the marsh, squinted against the wind. "Used to be a shrine at the crossroads. That one’s bigger. Wrong shape for a church, though." His voice was hollowed out, but steady.
Apollo watched the silhouette of the building resolve itself: walls blackened by rain, roof patched with something that might have been hides or slate.
A set of flags hung listless along the parapet, color bled out by decades of sun.
The closer they came, the more the air changed, denser, tainted by a sweetness he could not name. The dog went tense at his ankle, hackles up, but did not whine.