He watched Bingham come to the same conclusion.
“We won’t be able to find him,” Bingham said. “Not in three days. You’re talking about the Dragon Thief, somebody who has evaded the kingdom’s best people for the better part of a year or more. You’re talking about somebody who is better than us.”
Ty sighed. Bingham wasn’t wrong, but Ty wasn’t about to admit defeat. He wanted to at least attempt his plan. “Eastley needs us to find the egg.”
“If you think there’s someplace in the city you can look that would prevent the Dragon Touched from finding the egg, then we might have a chance. Otherwise, there’s no way we’re going to be able to find it.” He looked over to Ty. “I hate to say it, but Eastley might be stuck.”
“Why do you hate to say it?” Olivia asked. “He would leave Ty.”
“He might leave me, but I’m not leaving him,” Ty stated.
He had no way of explaining that to her. This was a person who had used him. He understood why, even if he couldn’t trust her, but that didn’t make anything any better or easier. He wouldn’t be like that though.
“So we need to find someplace that could be hidden from the Dragon Touched,” Ty said.
Bingham shrugged. “That’s the only way this is going to work.”
“But what could be hidden from the Dragon Touched?” And a dragon, though Ty didn’t know if there was any way for the dragon to track the egg.
“They can detect relics and remnants—mostly remnants, but if the relics are powerful enough, they will be able to find them. And almost any remnant can be detected, unless it has been spent. You’re talking about a dragon egg. We’re assuming it’s still functional,” Bingham said, looking over to Ty. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t be after it. So you have a functional egg, you have the Dragon Touched, and you have no way to hide it in the city.”
“Unless the thief masks the egg,” Ty said.
“How would they mask it?” Olivia asked.
Ty pulled out his dagger. “The paint conceals this.”
“But you’re talking about something more than just a remnant. Something with real power. So unless the Dragon Thief has some way of hiding the egg where there’s already remnants and relics, they won’t be able to keep it in the city,” Olivia said.
“Nowhere besides the palace has remnants and relics,” Bingham said.
Ty snorted. “The temple.” Bingham looked over to him and knew he was right. “It’s the only other place in the city where there are a significant quantity of relics. Every time I went there when I was younger, I was reminded of that. My father always pointed them out, telling me which ones my mother would have loved.” Bingham’s eyes twitched slightly. “And not that it’s the way to fully determine this, but the Flame atop the temple was different.”
“Different?” Bingham asked.
“Brighter.” Ty was right and he knew it. The plan was logical, and it would work.
“Where in the temple are these relics?” Olivia asked.
Ty shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t know, but that’s where we have to go. We can look there, see if we can’t find the egg, and then…”
Find the egg. Get Eastley. Get out of the city.
Three days.
He looked at Bingham. “I’m going to go looking for it whether or not you’re with me.”
“You aren’t going to go alone,” Bingham muttered, shaking his head. “You’re risking putting yourself in danger. Besides, the plan to get into the palace was my idea. If anyone is to blame for what happened to Eastley, it’s me.”
“I can help,” Olivia said. Ty looked over, and she shrugged. “I still need to be a part of this.”
For her family?
Did he believe that—or was there something else she was after?
Ty took a deep breath. “We don’t have much time. So I don’t want to wait to make a run at this.”
“We don’t wait. Let me gather some supplies, then we can go. Besides, it’s not like the temple is closed to us. With Ishantil doing what it has been, they’ve been welcoming celebrants of the Flame all hours of the day. It might actually offer us easier access,” Bingham said.
“Not just us, but the Dragon Thief,” Ty said.
“What happens if the Dragon Thief is there watching?” Olivia asked.
“Then we had better be prepared,” Bingham said.
That was another complication Ty hadn’t considered, but if the Dragon Thief was there, and had actually placed the egg inside the temple, it wasn’t just the Tecal or the Dragon Touched whom they had to be worried about. It was the priests—and Albion.
Ishantil rumbled distantly, the ground trembling, as if the volcano wanted to remind him of his countdown.
Three days.
Chapter Seventeen
It usually made Ty feel uncomfortable to approach the temple in the night. Partly because it was the Temple of the Flame and he didn’t necessarily celebrate the Flame the way the priests did, but also because he knew his line of work stood in contrast to the Flame.
They had passed several caravans on their way to the temple. They were not nearly as frequent as they had been, though there were still soldiers and Dragon Touched guarding them, keeping tabs on the wagons, and preventing anyone who still wanted to get out of the city from doing so. One man they’d passed had been begging a merchant for passage, offering his belongings as collateral. There were many others who looked as if they would try to go by foot, with satchels he suspected were meant to pay passage to the smugglers who could get them through the jungle.
Ishantil continued to tremble, threatening to erupt again, but so far there had been no sign of anything more. He suspected it was just a matter of time before there would be though.
There was a part of him that remained uncertain about this plan. If the priests were involved in hiding the egg, and he wasn’t entirely sure if they were, shouldn’t his brother have made some comment about it? Not to Ty, he decided. His brother would keep that from him. Anything that might lead him to knowing what the priests were doing. Anything that might be tied to the Flame.
Three days.
Now, in fact, it was closer to two days, and he knew if he didn’t finish this in time, Eastley would be trapped when Ishantil finally did erupt.
Bingham looked over to him. He seemed far more at ease with this than Ty did.
“When was the last time you took a job yourself?” Ty asked.
“It’s been awhile,” he admitted.
“I’m surprised you were still here,” Ty said. “I figured you would have left.” Bingham frowned, and a troubled expression crossed his brow, one that left Ty wondering what more he wanted to say but didn’t. “Why did you stay?”
“I don’t have any way out.”
“That’s not true,” Ty said. “You didn’t even try to move anything from inside your shop. You would’ve had a way out. You stayed. Why?”
Bingham slowed, and he looked over to Ty. “I couldn’t leave you behind. You lost too much.”
“That’s your reason? Because you feel like you owe my mother something? You didn’t make it seem like you cared that much after I left working with Maeve.” Had he stayed with her, he would have a reputable position in the city, but wouldn’t have earned what he needed to go looking for his parents.
“Because…” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. I’m just trying to understand you and what you’ve been doing. Why didn’t you leave?”
“Would it have been better for you if I had?” Bingham asked.
Ty thought it would’ve been harder, in fact, but he would’ve had fewer questions if Bingham had left.
“I know why Olivia is here,” Ty said, glancing over to her. “You forced her.”
Bingham frowned. “Is that what she told you?”
“She told me that you forced her father to take a job to repay his debts.”
“I didn’t force either of them,” Bingham said.
Ty didn’t think so. He wanted to believe she had been telling him the truth, but maybe she hadn’t.
They approached the temple. He could see the glow of the Flame above it, and could see the change—something was different. Ty had not been inside the temple to celebrate in so long that he wasn’t sure of himself at first, but now he believed he was right.
“Which way do you propose we enter?” Bingham asked.
“Let’s go through one of the priests’ entrances. We’re more likely to be noticed if we go through the main entrance of the temple.”
“They have priests there at all hours,” Bingham stated.
Ty nodded. The temple itself wouldn’t be locked—at least, not the main entrance—but they would be seen if they went in that way. They needed to slip in unseen, complete their mission, then escape again.
Ty guided them around the outside of the temple to the priests’ entrance. From there, he looked around but didn’t see anyone else out on the street.
It was surprisingly quiet, especially given what he had seen around the city, and how those who remained were likely faithful to the Flame.
“We’re missing something,” Ty said. “Maybe the Dragon Thief is hiding here? Or maybe he just stashed the egg, but either way, it feels like there’s something I’m missing.”
“There aren’t any patrols around here either,” Bingham said.
Ty hadn’t paid any attention to that, but now that Bingham mentioned it, he realized he was right. There were no patrols. The king had issues with the priests, but maybe with the Flame and what was happening with Ishantil, they had steered clear?
Ty didn’t know.
“Or they’re still patrolling and we just don’t see them,” Olivia said.
It was that possibility that troubled Ty more than anything else. He lingered with his hand on the door. Much like the temple itself, the door was warm, as if heated by some unnatural flame.
He pulled the lock pick set out of the pack Bingham had provided and quickly went to work. It wasn’t a complicated lock. As a priests’ entrance, there was no reason for it to be complicated. When it came open with a soft click, he glanced over at Bingham before pulling the door open and stepping inside.
Lanterns glowed in the distance.
Strangely, this reminded him of when he had broken into the palace, how the lanterns had led his way. He thought about whether he might be able to dim these the same way he had dimmed the lanterns in the palace, but these weren’t dragon lights. They were traditional oil-based lanterns, and they burned with a flickering type of light.
“You would think with how they celebrate the Flame, they would have some connection to Ishantil,” Bingham said.
“I think they don’t care what burns,” Ty said. “Fire is fire.”
“Let’s get this over with,” Bingham said. “If we can find the egg, we can plan our next move.”
Ty glanced over, frowning. He already knew what the next moves needed to be: find Gayal, trade the egg for Eastley, then move on from there.
But the way Bingham said it suggested that maybe he wasn’t sure about that.
“Where are we going now that we’re inside?” Olivia asked.
For the first time, she seemed uncertain.
“The main part of the temple,” Ty said. “If the Dragon Thief is just hiding the egg, then it would have to be in the temple. He wouldn’t have any way of getting anywhere else inside here.”
“Are you sure about that?” she asked.
He looked over to Olivia. “My brother is a priest.”
She frowned at him for a moment, then they started forward.
They slipped along the hall, moving quietly and quickly. Every so often, Ty glanced back to look over at Bingham and still marveled at how quietly he navigated through here. He had remained completely silent as they traveled.
Olivia kept pace with them and also stayed silent. It wasn’t that she wasn’t skilled—she had been skilled even when she had betrayed him—but it was more about her approach to certain jobs which could sometimes be clumsy. He supposed he should be thankful she was still here, working with them. It would help Eastley, though knowing her, there had to be some other reason for her assistance. It couldn’t just be for Eastley.
Ty turned, and when he reached the main part of the temple, he paused there for a moment, looking into it. This part of the temple was enormous, several stories high with a curved ceiling. Lanterns burned all around the perimeter of the ceiling, with what appeared to be cascading, lava-like flames pouring down the walls that then disappeared into some hidden place.
Ty had long ago tried to figure out what the priests did to create that image and decided that it was oil pouring from the ceiling down into the ground, and that it burned continuously. He couldn’t help but wonder just how much oil was necessary. It certainly wasn’t dragon magic, which burned in different ways and wasn’t nearly as continuous—at least, based on what he’d seen of it.
Rows of short benches lined the inside of the temple for the parishioners to kneel upon, but there was nobody here other than a priest near the altar to the Flame.
The altar was simple. It was elevated above the rest of the temple, and a trail of fire circled the entirety of it. An even larger flame rested in the middle of the altar and streaked upward, stretching with heat that Ty could feel pressing upon him. That flame burned the same as the others, although it burned almost entirely silently and was more brightly colored, with tinges of blue mixed in it. He could actually imagine that flame as some deity, though only when he was here. Other times, Ty had a hard time seeing the Flame as something to celebrate in worship, in stark contrast to his brother’s approach.
Ty looked around at the rest of the sparsely decorated temple. There was not much here besides the fire pouring down the walls, the rows of benches, and the altar. And sculptures—enormous obsidian sculptures of dragons ringed the inside of the temple. This was the only other place where sculptures like these were permitted. The king had not confiscated these, though Ty wouldn’t have been surprised if he had tried. Still, the priests would’ve objected. The sculptures celebrated the Flame, just as the priests did.
At the front of the temple, the Flame burned. It had a bluish quality to it that it hadn’t had before. Then again, the last time Ty had been to the temple had been several years ago. He might have visited Albion more recently, but he had not come in here to celebrate.
“Stay here,” Bingham said. “I’m going to go get a closer look.”
“It doesn’t have to be you,” Ty said.
“I look less suspicious.”
“He’s right,” Olivia said, looking over to Ty, as if she was actually trying to convince him. “Most of the people remaining in the city are older.”
Ty frowned, but Bingham didn’t give him a chance to say anything else. He slipped off, sneaking around the interior of the temple and snaking around the walls.
Ty watched as the priest bowed in celebration to the Flame. It was late enough, and there was no one else here. If they lingered here too long, either another priest or parishioners would come. There were some people who came only at night, feeling as if the draw of the Flame was more pronounced at nighttime.
He watched the Flame burning in the center of the altar. He couldn’t deny there was something hypnotic about it, some sense of power emanating from it that left him feeling as if there could be something more to it, as if that power and that magic were real. He could imagine what his brother would say if he were to hear that.
Bingham made his way around the inside of the temple. He went from statue to statue, running his hands along them. Ty wasn’t going to allow Bingham to be the only one who risked himself. He was the one who made the bargain with
Gayal, so he thought he should slip forward as well, to help search for any answers.
He crept forward, when Olivia grabbed his wrist.
“What are you doing?”
He wanted to pull away from her but he couldn’t shake the tingling on his skin as she touched him. The warmth. The feeling that he wanted her to touch him again. It had been her touch that had made him think there might be something more for him—an end to his loneliness.
“I’m going to see what Bingham is looking at with those sculptures. Stay behind me, and stay quiet,” Ty said.
“You didn’t like it when I stayed quiet,” she said.
Ty turned away. She didn’t need to see that her comment still got to him.
Why did she torment him like this for a business transaction?
Bingham was still stopped by the sculptures. What was he investigating them for? Perhaps he knew or suspected something.
Much like Ty’s mother, Bingham had also always had an interest in dragon relics. Even from a distance, Ty could tell these sculptures were actual relics—original ones, and not forgeries. Then again, this was the Temple of the Flame, so he wouldn’t expect them to have anything but originals.
He reached the nearest of the dragon sculptures. Ty had seen them every time he’d come to the temple. They were impressive in their size, but they were not all that different from other dragon relics he had recovered over the years. He still had no idea how the sculptures had been created. They were exquisitely carved and crafted in ways that could not be replicated now.
Whenever he had come to the temple before, parishioners had crowded around the sculptures. It was unusual to find them with no one around.
Heat radiated from them, which wasn’t entirely surprising since that was the case with so many other things in the temple, but he didn’t know why he should feel that heat or what it meant. Bingham crept around the inside of the temple and stopped at each sculpture, running his hands along them, as if feeling for something.
Path of the Flame (The Dragon Thief Book 1) Page 17