“By the Aether itself, I’ve never seen a dustier moon,” Caelmer grumbled, wading through the Trove Moon’s sandy surface. “The stuff isn’t even covering your feet and yet I’m having to trudge through it like we’re in a desert!”

  Ahn’rah couldn’t help but chuckle at his small friend’s complaining. If he wasn’t so anxious about the situation, he might have actually had a full belly laugh and a good teasing about Cael’s Adatopian stature. He couldn’t manage a response, though, instead leading the way up to the crater that opened into the moon’s stash. “We’re here.”

  “Thank goodness, I thought I might start sinking into the ground itself!” Caelmer dug through until he could take the first few steps onto the stairs, shaking black sand from his scales and beating both sets of wings to get the more stubborn bits. Cael then took a moment to stare down the set of long winding stairs, jutting out of the wall along with their assorted sconces and braziers.

  Ahn’rah saw his friend’s hesitance and his brow knit with worry. “I can walk ahead of you if you’d rather.”

  “N-No, it’s fine, just… Your father sure knows how to make things feel ominous, doesn’t he? The decorations are just like him.” The amethyst colored dragon joked, nervously chuckling at his own words before continuing down the steps.

  The other followed closely behind him. “I can’t say you’re wrong.”

  The two walked at a slightly brisk pace, the only sound being that of their claws tapping along the stone stairs. Ahn’rah was on high alert, listening as best he could just in case a third pair of footsteps decided to join the noise. From the way Cael’s feather-like antennae were pressed back against his head, it was likely he was feeling the pressure, too. They only had one shot to do this, as it was most likely they would never get such a well-timed chance again.

  After nearly half an hour of walking, they finally approached the opening of the Trove Room, Caelmer quickening his pace. Ahn’rah nearly tripped over him once the smaller dragon stopped, his antennae now sticking straight up into the air. Cael’s jaw practically hung from its hinges and the gasp he gave would have sucked the air out of a small room.

  “This is Hallath’s Trove? All of this is just his?”

  Ahn’rah gave a sigh and nodded, stepping around Caelmer and continuing down the steps. “According to him, it used to be his Father’s moon, where our ancestors were hatched and raised. Now the ‘legacy’ of the Kirr family is a glorified vault.”

  “Does he stay here?” Cael eventually asked, pointing toward the large bed of fine furs and cloth in the middle of the massive cavern.

  “Sometimes,” replied Ahn’rah, “but not all the time. He only really comes to sleep here if he needs to bask in his wealth. Otherwise he’s in his cave down on Topavara.”

  “Why would he stay down there? All of his valuables are here, and he’s head of the Divers. Wouldn’t he want a moon? He gave you and Turimiil the other moon after all.”

  “It wastes too much time, doesn’t have food or water, and it gets too cold when it's in its darker phase of orbit. It’s the same with ours, but he insists it’s ours to stay. He says all of the vacant dens on the planet are for new recruits and their families.” Ahn’rah shrugged, turning his back on the treasure and walking up to the large inert Golem, still propped up under the stairs. Turimiil thinks he just wants to keep us there so that we don’t have enough free time or stocked supplies to do anything outside of what he asks.”

  Cael grew quiet, something he could only manage on the off chance he was ever serious. Ahn’rah turned and watched his friend for a moment, how the young adatopian’s expression shifted with frustration, worry, and confusion.

  “Cael.” Ahn’rah said his name softly, calling his attention back to him. “It’s okay. We’re working on getting out, remember?” Ahn’rah nodded his head over to the Golem and Caelmer seemed to remember what they were here for, jogging over to stand beside him.

  “You’re right, we have to focus on this for now.” Cael muttered. He poked at the Golem’s leg, then began inspecting it further. Ahn’rah could hear and see the change in his friend’s demeanor at the prospect of a new magical wonder. “It really is huge! Way bigger than the ones in Rathsah!”

  “That’s what I keep hearing.” Ahn’rah replied quietly, glancing up the stairs again. He couldn’t help but keep an ear out for company, his nerves simply wouldn’t let him put his guard down.

  Cael began to ramble, now standing on his hind legs to get a better look at the flowers sprouting off the construct’s head and shoulders. Most of them were half wilted by now, but some still seemed to be thriving somehow. “I’ve never seen this before! They look like the lilies that grow on Relictumire, but their petals are too long, and they have a glittery luster. Maybe they were altered in the Aether?”

  “It would make sense. Father said he picked it up on Relictumire and took it with them the rest of the way. It’s the first planet of the Dive, so he was carrying it along for quite some time.” Ahn’rah replied, glancing back and forth from Cael to the stairs. “Hurry and check the Runeplate, I don’t want to stay here longer than we have to.”

  “Right, right, I’ll get on it.” Caelmer nodded and quickly moved to the Golem’s back, a tiny hum of thought escaping him as he sat and began reading the runes. “This is pretty big stuff! I already see the rune for channeling, and here’s the one for protection! This will take a while, keep an eye out.”

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  Ahn’rah nodded, walking to a spot where he could better look up the stairway. “Just how long will it take? We don’t have forever here.”

  “No more than an hour!”

  “An hour!?” Ahn’rah balked, looking back in the direction of his friend, though he could no longer see him from where he stood.

  “Relax! Any other Rune Forger would tell you three! This is Caelmer Aragwyn we’re talking about! The prodigy of The Thought-Bringers!” Cael laughed from his spot with the Golem.

  “Fine, fine, just hurry!” Ahn’rah sighed and sat at the base of the stairs. He sat there for the entire hour, listening intently for any strange noise and watching the shadows for any unusual movements. Every minute that ticked by made him more tense, more anxious. It felt like he’d been sitting there forever by the time Cael finally spoke again.

  “Uh, Ahn’rah? I’m done, get over here.” The smaller dragon sounded nervous as well, and that didn’t help Ahn’rah’s nerves. He quickly came back to him to find the Adatopian’s white eyes wide and his brow furrowed.

  “What’s wrong, Cael? What is it?”

  “I, uh… The Runeplate is meant to channel Ley Energy from another source and then store it for use in spells. But, there’s also another string of runes here that’s meant to link it to someone else, making it a puppet, and yet another clause leaves it inert if it’s too far from its counterpart or the counterpart is no longer able to control it.” Cael rattled off all of these attributes, pointing to different faintly glowing orange runes as he did so.

  “So it’s an advanced construct controlled by someone else? We already knew that, Father said that he took out a mage that was controlling all of them.” Ahn’rah shook his head. “I don’t get it, what’s wrong?”

  Cael cleared his throat nervously, his voice uncharacteristically shaky. “That’s not the alarming part. There aren’t any Leylines on this moon, no magic or energy for it to draw from, so why is the runeplate still active?”

  Ahn’rah’s brow knit together. “Could it be residual? Maybe it was still absorbing energy from the Aether or from the other planets it was on during the dive?”

  “That would already be gone, the energy isn’t meant to be stored in the Runeplate, just channeled.”

  Ahn’rah felt a pit in his stomach, slowly beginning to catch on. “So, you’re saying that there’s something else it’s drawing from?”

  “What I’m saying is that I think something is inside this thing! And I don’t know just what it could be-”

  Both dragons stopped talking as a third voice broke into the conversation, a muffled and weak hum. Their heads swiveled to look at the Golem, both simply staring for a moment before the sound came again. It was definitely coming from the clay mass they were inspecting, and it was definitely the same sound Ahn’rah had heard when he was last leaving the Trove Moon.

  Ahn’rah quickly went up to the Golem’s head, taking it gently in his hands and staring at the one eye left uncovered by grass. When it didn’t open, he slowly and carefully used his claws to pry the clay eyelids open. What he didn’t expect to see was a ghastly green eye with similarly colored skin staring up at him beneath it, tired and fearful. It widened at the sight of him and the golem made another more frantic muffled noise, seemingly a yell.

  “Cael, open it! Now!” Ahn’rah barked out the order and Caelmer immediately leapt into action, slipping behind the Golem and making hand movements over the runeplate. A bright purple light followed his hands as he began dispelling the slab of stone until eventually he was able to reach forward and grasp it. After trying to pull and turn the Runeplate a few different ways he eventually managed to twist it off.

  The Golem reacted almost immediately, the cracks near the Runeplate now growing and separating the clay construct into sections that hinged off of one another. Ahn’rah wasted no time in pulling away the sections, trying to be both quick and careful as he carefully unwrapped the apparent person underneath.

  It was a Fae, a Dullahan to be exact. He was tall and lanky with long shaggy hair tied in a messy ponytail that seemed to move despite there being no wind. Everything about him was a ghostly green color and the edges of him almost seemed to wisp about like he could vanish at any moment. Ahn’rah reached out to help the Fae out of the Golem, but he let out a yell and scrambled out by himself, attempting to run away but falling on wobbly legs.

  Cael quickly approached, trying to both assess the Dullahan’s health and calm him. “It’s okay, we’re not going to hurt you! Just breathe, okay?”

  Ahn’rah now noticed that the Fae’s right leg was seemingly gone at the middle of his thigh, but a spectral translucent one continued where the flesh was missing. The poor man was shaking and breathing heavily, and Ahn’rah could tell from his experience watching the Divers train that the shaking was from exhaustion in his muscles. He had exerted himself too fast after being static in the Golem for so long. Who knew what kind of effects it had on him?

  Cael gently tried to calm the Fae while Ahn’rah turned to fold the Golem back to the way it was, the cracks filling and smoothing into one another once the parts of it met again. He just finished fitting the now inert Runeplate back into its back when Cael called over to him.

  “He passed out! We have to get him out of here!”

  “Do you thing The Thought-Bringers would take him with you?” Ahn’rah asked.

  “What? He can’t travel in this condition! Look at the wisps coming off of him, he’s practically halfway dead!”

  Ahn’rah thought for a moment before nodding. “We can bring him to my moon, try and hide him away there. Father makes a point not to enter our den.”

  “Got it. Let’s go, you carry him, I’m too small to hold him.” Cael then ran off toward the steps while Ahn’rah approached the unconscious Dullahan and easily picked him up, cradling him in one arm. Cael called from behind him. “Hurry!”

  The two began quickly ascending the stairs, desperate to leave the Trove Moon, before another new sound emerged. It was a loud shifting sound of sand from the top of the crater, falling into the stairwell and sifting through the steps. Footsteps thundered after it, claws tapping and scraping against stairs. Ahn’rah and Cael both turned and descended again, rushing back into the Trove Moon to find someplace to hide. Someone was coming, and fast.