Assassin of Curses: (The Coren Hart Chronicles Book 3) by Jessie Eaker (best novels in english TXT) 📕

the trail. “Just a little further in, you’re going to start to feel like I’m heading in the wrong direction. Just ignore it and follow behind me.”

I nodded. “I’ve encountered something like it before back when we climbed Mount Eternal.”

Her eyebrows went up in surprise. “You mean that’s true? I thought it was just a made up part of the song.”

There was that ballad again. I shook my head. “No, it really happened. Only it wasn’t quite as dramatic as they portrayed it.”

“What about the other parts?”

I sighed. “Some of them are sort of true, but blown way out of proportion.”

She smiled wistfully. “I can’t believe my little brother has a ballad written about his adventures.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Maybe one day you’ll tell me what really happened.”

I smiled. “I think I’d like that.”

She turned and led me deeper into the woods.

Just as she said, the feeling came on slowly—a sense of wrongness. I frequently caught myself at least a pace to the right or the left of where Docila led. I would correct it, only to once again find myself off course.

“Aren’t you affected?” I finally asked in frustration. “I’m not doubting your direction, but it feels so wrong!”

She shrugged. “I’ve been here a couple of times, and I’ve just learned how to ignore it. I focus on the landmarks instead. It helped that during the first trip, the goats didn’t seem bothered by it.”

I focused on following her and tried to shut everything else out. It was difficult, but thankfully, we didn’t have much further to go. The feeling suddenly vanished as soon as we crossed some invisible line. We emerged a few paces later into a clearing utterly devoid of trees and brush. Instead, it was filled with clusters of huge broken stones, with some having pieces of ornate figures carved on them and others appearing to be chunks of broken statues. There were even a few that could have been columns toppled on their sides and covered in vines. It looked like a giant hand had swept across them and knocked everything down.

I wandered among the fallen giants, amazed that everything had been broken. All the other works of the ancients had been in near perfect condition.

“What could have happened?” I asked aloud.

Docila came to stand beside me. “When I was a girl, I heard an elder tell of a strong earthquake when his grandfather was just a boy. I thought that might have done it.”

I nodded. That sounded reasonable. I guess even the ancients couldn’t stand against the forces of the earth. I just hope it hadn’t also destroyed the Griffin’s Key.

Docila watched me patiently while I stood in place and turned in a circle, trying to get a feel for how everything had been arranged. I tried to imagine what it looked like before the earthquake.

There had been a life-size statue in the center, which now lay broken on the ground. It reminded me of the Myst Siphon that had protected Ruin’s Shield and nearly killed Zofie. And indeed, when I looked closer, I could see that there had been a short circular wall around it. Also within the circle rested a jumble of stones, which must have been some type of building.

I picked my way to the remains of the building and circled its perimeter, searching for a way to see what might be hidden under it. But nothing was evident. I was about to go back to the house and see about getting a shovel when I noticed a dip in the ground. It was slight, but definitely there. I knelt down over it and used a loose rock to try to dig a little.

Suddenly the ground underneath me gave way, and I plunged through. I dropped about five feet and landed painfully face down in the dirt. I lay there, momentarily stunned. Thankfully, a sizable pile of loose soil had broken my fall.

“Coren!” Docila called from above. I rolled over and looked up to see her staring down at me. “Are you all right? I thought you were dead there for a moment.”

I sat up, groaning as my battered body protested. I brushed dirt from my coat, creating clouds of dust. “I’m a bit bruised and a few scratches, but nothing broken.”

I examined my surroundings. The afternoon sun was peeking through the hole above and provided ample illumination to see what lay immediately around me. The familiar shape of stairs emerged from underneath the pile of soil I sat on, one side going up and blocked by several large stones, and the other leading down into the darker depths.

“I seem to be in some kind of stairwell,” I called up. “It must have been covered over in the earthquake.” I scooted toward the darker portion of the stairs. “I’m going to see what’s down here.”

“Be careful,” Docila called back. “You don’t know what horrors could be lurking in the dark.”

I thought back to the stone men and the giant crab that had protected the Mirror of Bygone Tears. Yes, there definitely could be bad things down here. I pulled out my sword and held it ready.

I carefully picked my way through the debris on the steps and down the stairwell. Once I was beyond the initial cave-in, the wreckage quickly cleared, leaving only a thick layer of undisturbed dust.

The darkness grew as I moved away from the collapsed ceiling and farther down the stairs. I reached inside my jacket and pulled out my trusty amulet. It had originally protected me from the worse of my bad luck. But since Abe had broken it, all it was good for was producing a dim light. But even that had proven quite useful.

I didn’t have to go too far before the stairs ended at an arched doorway. The moment I passed through,