After the last speck of porridge had been licked from the bottom of the bowls (and the pot), Dayton insisted on taking a bath of his own at the pool. He returned, blond hair silken and wispy once more, with an armload of clean dishes.

Cara carefully repacked their supplies and settled the makeshift pack across her shoulders. It was much lighter, which made her forehead crease in worry.

“We need to get to Cadens, and sooner rather than later. We’ve already lost two days and the nights are getting cooler. The supplies are running low, too.”

Cara boosted the bottom of the trunk that Dayton was struggling to secure so he could do up the straps and buckles without fighting its weight. “There you go. Feel alright?”

Dayton rolled his shoulders once, twice, then nodded. “I’m all set. Shall we?”

Their trek through the swamp-marshes continued to take a mostly eastern route. The moist ground warmed quickly from the night’s chill.

By mid-morning, each step Cara and Dayton created miniature mud puddles, making progress more difficult and souring their relatively upbeat outlooks.

But then, Cara thought as they stopped by a log to empty their water-logged boots, wet feet makes even gods miserable.

She chuckled at the image of Riana and the Morgana mincing their way through marsh, lifting spiderweb skirts hemmed with diamonds clear of the mud puddles.

Dayton paused in his boot-shaking to look at her, clearly wondering what had made her laugh, but Cara only waved him and her thought away. Time to get back to work.

Now pain-free—or as pain-free as was possible, given the long slog of a hike and her still-healing shin—Cara had been paying closer attention to her surroundings that she had on their first foray into this portion of the swamp.

So it was she who saw the ruins first.

Moss covered stone columns rose, looking almost like the neighboring lichened tree trunks.

As Cara stopped and tilted her head back, shading her eyes from the sun’s glare, she could see what had once been great stone pyramid rising nearly as tall as the treeline.

Now, it was little more than a triangular pile of rubble, offering an anchor for more trees and the ubiquitous moss that seemed to cover anything that stayed still for ten minutes.

The columns marked something like an outermost boundary of the pyramid. The plants that grew on the far side of the columns were markedly smaller, with trees that were barely out of their sapling days dotting the surprisingly level ground.

Dayton drew up beside her and stared at the building. The whelpling lifted its head from its perch on Dayton’s shoulder and hissed.

“For once, I agree. I don’t like this,” Cara said. “I’ve never heard of any place like this. And why abandon it?”

A sudden gust of wind made the trees sway and ivy strands flutter. Cara could feel the hairs at the back of her neck rise. “No, I definitely don’t like this. We should go. We have the whole afternoon yet in front of us.”

“Exactly.” Dayton stepped forward, gaze locked on the columns’ fluted caps. “We have all afternoon yet to make more progress, and it’s about time for lunch, isn’t it? Let’s take a few minutes and explore while we eat.”

“I’m the Hero on this quest, and I’m calling it.” Cara shook her head. “There could be anything in there. Traps. Monsters. Cursed treasure. I’m not letting you risk your neck on some romantic notion of tomb robbing.”

“Is it a tomb? I don’t think so.” He pointed at the column.

This time, Cara could see etchings around its upper limits. The main motif was a central circle, flanked by crescents on the left and right. As far as Cara could tell through the hanging moss, the pattern repeated to encircle the entire column cap.

“Is that…?”

“Yeah. That’s the Dark Ones’ badge. I think it’s safe.”

“Safe? You just said it was the Dark Ones!”

Dayton shrugged, still staring at the motif. “They don’t take anyone whose time isn’t up.”

“But I don’t want my time to be up! I have too much to do! What if they think it is? What if they think yours is? I can’t protect you from a god!”

Dayton grinned. “Good thing I’m an Acolyte.”

Without another word, he passed between the columns, heading toward the stone pile of rubble that had once been a pyramid.

Cara watched as Dayton and the whelpling trudged through undergrowth. They disappeared behind a screen of naked foliage without so much as looking back once to see if she’d follow. Because he knows I have to, rot his eyes.

With a huff, Cara readjusted her pack and hurried after them.

By the time she caught up with her wayward marque, Dayton was standing in front of a gaping hole in the pyramid, apparently waiting for her.

He didn’t even have the grace to look surprised as she pulled up beside him, breathing more heavily than she had all afternoon.

“You will… not do that… again…” she huffed out, giving him the stink eye. “Ever.”

“Yes, yes, Mother-May-I. Now may we please go inside?” Barely restrained excitement raised his voice, added a scholar’s gleam to his gaze. “I think this might be one of the lost altars! Brother Nemon was always talking about finding them, but I didn’t think they’d actually existed!”

“Would that it didn’t. I’m not getting a choice, am I?”

Dayton shook his head.

She sighed with exaggerated patience. “Fine. We leave our packs here, you make up torches, and I go first.

“I mean it,” she added, seeing the mutiny tense his jaw and lift his chin. “My job is to protect you, and I’m not going to let you wander into gods-know-what in a pile of rocks without me to double check the way.”

Dayton almost argued, but he apparently decided that’d be a futile effort. He nodded once, before fumbling at the straps holding the trunk here.

“Aren’t you scared someone’ll take it?” Cara asked him as she helped ease it into the doorway.

Dayton gave her a look that made her feel ten years younger. “What, in the middle of the swamp? I doubt even your thief friend would be able to find us right now.”

“It’s just a marsh now, and he’s not my friend!” She had to shout the last words at his back as he dashed back the way they’d come, looking for materials for torches.

She looked down in time to see the baby kaprid slither off of the trunk and down the tunnel in front of them. She heard a scuffle and a muffle squeak before the snap of crunching bones.

If Cara’d been just a bit quicker, she could’ve taken care of the beastling before Dayton had even noticed.

Oh well. Cara wished the baby kaprid slow feet and confused direction so it might never return, and began to unharness her own pack.

She didn’t want to be encumbered, should they encounter… something.

Dayton might be convinced that the place was safe, but she was far less trusting.

Then again, as he’d told her once before, faith was his career.

She stretched her back and arms, checked her sling and bag of rocks, and waited for Dayton to return.

Before too long, she could spot his white skin and shiny hair glinting between the trees as he almost ran back to her, each hand holding two burning torches.

“You’d never be able to hide, with that hair of yours,” Cara commented as he handed her one of the torches.

“Good thing I don’t need to. Are you ready?”

“As ever.” She motioned toward the tunnel with the smoking torch. “Stay close.”