The Last Dahlia

020

"It's odd that we haven't so much as seen a single soul since we got into the building," Yuehwa quipped. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Smells like a trap to me."

Shaking his head, Shoya replied, "The least guarded building in this palace is also the most heavily guarded. The irony."

Puzzled by his response, Yuehwa shrugged and watched him pick the lock to the double doors. No matter, guards or no guards, nothing fazed her really.

Perched on her shoulder, her flaming friend sighed at the foolishness he was witnessing.

The inscription on the door warns that any trespasser who steps beyond this point will be doomed to an eternity in the eighteen depths of hell, to experience a pain far worse than death, and to suffer an immeasurable loss that will wither away your soul. Are you sure about this?

"You can read all that nonsense? You're just making it up!" Yuehwa exclaimed, turning to glare at Ember.

"Excuse me?" Shoya turned around.

"Just talking to the bird. He says the inscription on the door is a doom and gloom warning about us being roasted by hell's fires, never to be reincarnated for a million lifetimes."

That's not exactly what I said, the bird chirped, looking unimpressed.

"He's right," Shoya replied as a matter-of-fact. He ran his fingers down the cursive lettering that had been engraved into the stone. "What it says is 'Beyond these doors lie the truth within the stars. He who tries to steal the secrets of the heavens will pay the equivalent price in life and death'."

"That's not exactly what you said either," Yuehwa hissed to the friend on her shoulder.

At that moment, a whirring sound of cogs and gears interrupted them, and the next the heavy door creaked open.

"There's still time to change your mind you know," Shoya paused and said.

Shaking her head, she pushed past him and heaved the door open, just enough for her to squeeze across. "What do you take me for? The Phoenix never runs away from anything! Besides, I've seen worse warnings than the one on the door," she scoffed.

The moment she stepped over to the other side, what met her eyes left her slightly confused. She was standing in an empty stone chamber shaped like an octagon, with an identical door at each face. Seven identical doors—and when she turned around to look at the door they had come through, which had since silently shut itself behind Shoya, that number increased to eight. "Well at least it doesn't quite look like the passageway to hell," she mumbled to herself.

Shoya withdrew a small pouch that had been hanging from his waistband and carefully sprinkled a little of its powdered contents in front of the door.

"What's that?" Yuehwa asked.

"Something to make sure that we'll be able to get out of here quickly if we need to. It's powder that's ground from antelope antlers." He picked up one of the lanterns that were hanging all around the sides of the room, holding one close to where he had just sprinkled the powder. "If light shines on it at just the right angle, it becomes reflective. It's not all that obvious though, so most people miss it because they aren't looking."

Sure enough, Yuehwa saw the subtle shimmering of the powder on the ground, marking out the one door that would lead them back to freedom.

"So, which door do we take now?" she asked, turning back to look at Shoya.

"I don't know," he replied. "The last time I took this one," he pointed at the door on the right of the one they had entered, "but it led me back here through that one," he pointed at the one directly opposite.