Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Magpie walks briskly through the strange courtyard as if she knows exactly where she’s going. We follow behind her, single file, and pass another team clustered up near their leader. As we move farther in, I see crumbling walls of old brick amidst the muddy paths and my heart clenches with excitement once more. These truly are the ruins of Old Prell.
There are holes all over the place, too. Not small holes dug by spades—these holes are big enough to drive a wagon through, and I think of the small spade in my bag and the staff I carry with the pointed end. Neither of these tools seem big enough to do the level of digging I’m looking at. As I watch, someone pushes a mine cart forward, and a guild member runs a wand through the air. A shimmering portal opens, and the cart is pushed through. Another one comes through the portal, this one empty.
I gasp and tap Gwenna on the shoulder. “Did you see that?”
“Seems like a shitty use for an artifact,” she says, and sounds spectacularly unimpressed.
“Where do you think it goes?”
“Does it matter? Nowhere important if they’re just using it to dump dirt instead of selling it to some holder for top coin.”
Hmm, she has a point. I’m still entranced, though, and I watch as the portal wavers and then flickers out again. The exasperated guild man waves the wand in the air again, reopening it, and another man pops through with an empty mine cart.
I eye the men crawling all over the anthill of the ruins. Everyone’s wearing guild uniforms, but only the one with the wand has the patch of someone who’s passed the guild tests. Everyone else is wearing apprentice colors. I move forward and tap Lark on the shoulder. “Ask Magpie why there are so many apprentices here.”
“Magpie has ears,” our guild master calls back. “And those aren’t apprentices. At least, not right now. Those are repeaters.”
Oh. Repeaters—the fledglings who didn’t pass guild testing and were dropped by their masters. They’re doing manual labor to assist the guild in the hopes another master will be impressed by their work ethic and give them another chance. I stare at the men hard at work, at the resentful looks they shoot in our direction as we walk through. This doesn’t seem good at all. It’s a setup that’s positively asking for abuse. I need to say something to Hawk about it, but then I spot a broken cornice at the edge of a crumbling brick wall at knee height. The blurry form is obvious to me, and all the thoughts fall from my head at the sight.
It’s an Old Prellian carving, late period.
I rush forward and collapse next to the cornice, touching it with hesitant reverence. By all the gods. Even though it’s been worn down by time and weather, I can still see the stylized eagle that was so very popular with Late Prellian architecture. It’s an amazing example and looks to be made out of the marble they favored in the late period. My fingers trace along the outstretched wings, and I’m in awe. To think that I can see this up close. To think that people just walk past this, every day, as if it’s nothing.
Someone clears her throat nearby.
I turn and see Magpie, her hands on her hips. “If you’re done fondling the rocks, can we get going?”
“Oh, but—the cornice—the eagle—” I stammer, covering it with my arms as if to protect it. “Late Prellian architecture. It’s just sitting here in the courtyard. Someone could hit it with a shovel—”
She gives me an exasperated look. “Where are we going, Aspeth?”
Is…is this a trick question? “Drop Thirteen?”
“We are going into the ruins of Old Prell. It’s full of rocks just like that one. So get up and let’s go look at those other rocks, yes?”
Reluctantly, I get to my feet. I don’t want to leave it behind—it’s so damned beautiful, I don’t understand how they aren’t scooping it up to put into a museum or a treasury—but I want to see Old Prell, too. And I want to dig in the ruins.
And I need artifacts.
It hurts me physically to leave the carved cornice behind. I feel it in my heart, but I can’t stay behind in the mud and with all these glaring men with shovels. I get to my feet, dusting off my trousers and adjusting my ill-fitting clothes. Satisfied that I’m following again, Magpie turns and marches once more. Gwenna gives me a sympathetic look. More than anyone, she understands my obsession with Old Prell.
We follow behind Magpie as she makes her way through the enormous field littered with rocks and gigantic holes surrounded by scaffolding. As we walk past, a flag with the number eight—in bold yellow—is hung on a pole. Behind the pole, a cluster of guild men are being lowered into a hole in what looks like an enormous basket.