Claimed by Callista

Chapter ✺ 5

A black rose is painted by my nose on the cave wall. Cave art. It's where I've landed from crawling down, and I only see it – because of a low luminescent glow, emanating from the Temple of Death.

It is very dim, but this light filters far down into these narrow corridors.

I walk toward the main temple, confident I am safely alone.

A forward path takes me to the sound of lapping water and a fire pit of orange coals, which give off the light.

All around me, as I finally look up and around at the rocks piled on top of one another – I see skulls are lining every single wall, shelved in. This is the graveyard.

Huh.

It's... a little intense, having the eyes of hundreds of the dead – hollow skull eye sockets, all staring right at me, all at once.

Hmm. Why did I come down here? It is probably the most daunting thing I've ever done.

Perhaps the most foolish.

"Hmm," I make a nervous noise aloud, and it echoes, back at me, louder.

I turn from the skulls, to see a slab of rock behind me – next to a natural pillar. I had missed it walking in.

My eyes widen further.

On this slab is the full skeleton of a bear. It is laid out carefully – nothing is out of place.

The Magus Callista slept on a bear hide. Is my first thought.

I also thought his tent was his temple.

Um. I was so wrong.

My lips part a bit, as I realise, spinning around and taking it all in... this is his temple. This is where he practices rituals. This is where he buries his dead. There was also no way he would fit through the mouth I crawled down in.

I turn back to the murky pool of water.

It bubbles with air – from the furious current deep underneath, that leads out into the river.

It wasn't a short journey under a metre of rock, it was perilously long and twisted, but I knew he swam through it all. This makes my mouth and tongue dry.

I, still am not afraid of death.

But I know now I really shouldn't be here. And I do feel like an intruder –

My eyes flicker back down, as something moves.

In the water. Oh, fuck no.

A giant bronze shape covered in whorls of Inck swims through the deep passage like a crocodile.

Callista swims to the surface – and I am unable to move, as I stand at the base of his bear skeleton's slab, in front of the pit of burning coals – the only thing separating me from the water.

Callista breaks through the surface and then immediately steps out from his pool.

He stands on dry rock and shakes out his hair, water droplets sizzling in the fire pit.

The Magus is completely oblivious to the fact someone might be here. It was his sacred space.

His secret.

But as with any Shaman, he senses me when he stills completely.

And as with my bold passion for ruthlessness – I will not hide.

Callista turns his head, and his whorls for eyes stab right through me.

I gulp uncontrollably, and I do not move nor speak.