The Princess' Harem
Chapter 98: Ruins of Al’Khar

Chapter 98: Ruins of Al’Khar

As they got closer, the size of the ruins became clear. Huge blocks of dark, rough stone, unlike anything Viana had seen in Elysia, formed the bases of what must have been giant buildings. They stopped at the edge of the ruins, where soft, deep sand had piled against collapsed walls.

"We move in pairs," Viana said, her voice clear and strong. "Joel, check the outside. Reyes, take a knight and check the east side. Arden, Kaley, you’re with me. We’ll look at what seems like the main library or office area."

She looked at Rayne. "Prince, keep your other knight with you. Secure our horses, then check the west side. We don’t know what, or who, is inside."

Rayne nodded, meeting her gaze. He trusted her orders, at least for now, accepting her lead without question in this lonely place.

They went into the ruins. Their soft footsteps on the sand and grit echoed in the deep silence. The air inside was still, thick with dust and the smell of old stone.

Broken courtyards led to long, empty hallways that wound deeper into the complex. Every small sound, a shifting pebble, a whisper of wind, echoed and making them jumpy.

Viana led Arden and Kaley into an area that seemed to be many connected rooms, marked by the faint traces of shelves and scattered bits of what might have been old scrolls on the walls.

The ground was covered with broken pottery, small, hard pieces of wood, and fine, wind-blown sand that had settled over hundreds of years.

"Look for anything written," Viana whispered, her voice barely heard. "Tablets, carvings, part of old writings. Anything about the land, the blight, or the Desert’s Embrace."

Arden, his eyes bright with excitement, began sifting through the debris, carefully looking at every stone, every piece of broken pot. Kaley moved more slowly, his head tilted, and his eyes sometimes closing.

He wasn’t looking for any writings, Viana realized, but he was listening and feeling. His spiritual senses were alive here, tuned to the echoes of the past, to the old energies of a lost civilization.

"This place... it hums with old sadness," Kaley murmured in soft voice, almost like a sound of breath. "And a deep, forgotten strength."

He stopped by a wall, its surface mostly smooth, but with faint carvings that nearly erased by time. He reached out a hand, tracing its faint lines. "The people who built this... they knew the land well. They understood its balance. And how easily it could be hurt."

Arden, meanwhile, uttered a sharp, excited gasp. He had found a stone tablet, surprisingly whole, buried with the other scattered tablets, beneath a pile of rubble. It was heavy, its surface covered with symbols unlike any Viana had seen in Elysian or Valendale writing.

He carefully brushed away the fine dust, his fingers trembling slightly with anticipation. "Princess, this is... very different. I can’t decipher them. But the symbols... they show a cycle pattern of growth and decay."

He frowned, tracing a complex writings and symbols carved into the stone. "And this drawing... a flower, with some carved like lights surrounding it."

Viana knelt beside him, her eyes fixed on the carving. The flower carving was clear. This should be the Desert’s Embrace, it’s plain to see. A cold and sharp thrill shot through her, a rush of adrenaline mixed with a growing, desperate hope.

Kaley walked over with eyes widening as he saw the tablet. "Yes," he breathed and pointed to smaller symbols carved around the main flower. "These are spiritual cycles. The land’s life, the sickness and its memory."

Arden worked quickly, his fingers moving over a complex code book he carried with him, which he had prepared before they departed from Elysia. After a few tense minutes, he began to translate parts, he mumbled unknown language.

Then he looked up, his face pale in the fading light. "It calls the blight ’Void Sickness’, a draining of life itself, a spoiling of everything that exists. The blight that plagues our lands... only can be cured by the Desert’s Embrace."

"What about its location?" Viana rushed, her heart beating fast.

Arden continued to decipher, his brow furrowed deeply, his finger tracing the old script and his own code book.

"It mentions... ’the Highest Cradle of Thorns,’ ’where the sun burns brightest and the very rocks sing with thirst.’ A place where ’no water dares stay, and the winds carry echoes of forgotten prayers.’ And then, a clearer spot, ’Beyond the Al’Khar, through the Stone Labyrinth, rising to the Heart of the Sunstone Wastes, where the true mountain of the Sun God reaches for the sky.’"

Kaley nodded slowly, his face showing deep understanding, his expression calm. "The description... it matches the old scrolls on the temple’s library. The Desert’s Embrace is more than just a flower; it shows the land’s will to live, a key point for its spiritual healing."

He looked at Viana with serious eyes. "This tablet proves what we believed. The blight is a wound on the land’s soul. And the Desert’s Embrace is its only true medicine."

A sudden, chilling gust of wind swept through the ruins, bringing with a faint smell of something metallic and sharp. It was not the usual desert wind.

Reyes’s voice, cut through the quiet place. "Princes! There’s movement on the western side! Quickly!"

The metallic tang in the wind solidified into a real danger as Reyes’s sharp shout echoed off the ancient stones. Before his last word faded, dark shapes broke away from the shadows of the ruins.

They moved with unsettling quiet and speed. These were not common bandits or desert scavengers. These figures were like ghosts, dressed in dark, tight clothes that seemed to swallow the fading light.

Their faces were covered by cloth masks, showing only cold and determined eyes. The Shadow Clan. Prince Arin’s deadliest fighters.

Viana’s hand flew to the quiver on her back. Her mind, which had just been focused on the old tablet, now snapped to the coming fight.