Empire of Ash: A Passionate Paranormal Romance with Young Adult Appeal (God of Secrets Book 1) Read online

  Text Copyright © 2020 L. R. W. Lee

  All rights reserved.

  Paperback ISBN: 979-8648891289

  Woodgate Publishing

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, consult the website at www.lrwlee.com.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter One

  My heart pounds and my breathing labors as I sink to the earth and grab for something, anything to hold onto. The well-worn, wooden picnic table is nearest, and I stretch for a leg causing my precious, fourth honey baklava to slip from its rice paper and plummet to the hard-packed dirt. Ordinarily I’d whimper, but not today.

  End. End. Come on.

  I tamp down on a scream that begs to be freed as the shaking intensifies—my male colleagues will laugh at me if I don’t master myself.

  The two metal trays of cooling lamb gyros slide from the table I foraged from, dumping what little remains of their bounty. The crash as they hit the ground makes my breathing stagger further.

  Like rapid-fire gunshots, the falafels follow, along with the hummus, pitas, and baklava. I can’t contain a whimper.

  The coffee carafe smashes on the ground, spewing its scalding contents a heartbeat later, nearly licking me.

  My knuckles turn white as I clutch the quivering table leg and force my mind to envision a pair of eyes, the left silver, the right gold, that have always comforted me when I’m afraid.

  I’ve never questioned the origin of the image, but every time I picture those sparkling eyes, a very real and visceral calm falls over me. I’ve always pretended it’s a powerful god looking down and smiling, assuring me everything will be okay. As the image forms once more, I bow my head and slow my breathing, still clutching the table leg as the tremor continues.

  The ground isn’t supposed to move. It isn’t.

  I should be used to quakes by now; this will be the fourteenth I’ve experienced since joining the Mycenae, Greece dig the summer of my sophomore year at UT Austin. But, no.

  I’ll never, ever get used to them. Quakes shake the only thing I believe is truly fixed and permanent. If the ground itself can move, Ab. So. Lute. Ly. nothing is stable or dependable, and that thought terrifies me.

  I exhale as the shaking finally abates. Compared with quakes, the miserable cold, wet wind making the canvas of our blue command tent thwap as it strains against its tie-downs is nothing, even though we all complain about it.

  I ease to sitting, dusting off my parka and cargo pants despite their permanently soiled condition, and tighten the simple band holding back my long, port-red hair.

  “A pity all our college interns are on spring break and missed it,” Irik, my fellow third-year archeologist and co-site supervisor, says in his usual aristocratic drawl that reminds me of Thurston Howell, the thhhirrrd from Gilligan’s Island reruns. He looks down at me from the end of the lunch table with a canine grin that accentuates his cat-like eyes.

  I return a frown.

  “Oh come on, Pelly, you know it’s just the earth letting off stress. Even you wouldn’t begrudge it that, would you?” He raises his bushy, burnt-brown unibrow, continuing to hold that asinine expression.

  Anger ignites in an instant. Pelly? The kids at the group home growing up teased me mercilessly, calling me Smelly Pelly until I cried. I’ve grown tough out of necessity, and there aren’t many ways to get under my skin, but this is one and Irik knows it, despite not knowing my history. Call me a fiery redhead, but this and injustice fuel my ire equally.

  Just ignore the asshole, I tell myself.

  Experience has taught me that while it would feel good in the moment to let the arrogant bastard really have it, I’ll regret it later. Women just can’t get ahead being forthright in this male-dominated profession, so I clear my throat and in a very sweet voice say, “Irik, it seems that very little, teeny, tiny brain of yours has again forgotten that I’ve asked you to refer to me by Pell or Pellucid.”

  Someone nearby snorts.

  I about gag on the saccharine of my BS.

  Irik frowns but doesn’t have an opportunity to dig a deeper hole for himself because Jude Westfall, our excavation director, rises from the other end of the row of picnic tables, swallows the last of his lunch, and rubs his hands together. “That was a pretty good shake. I want you all to check on the site and ensure our previous excavations were not disturbed.” He pushes a yellow number two pencil over his ear, picks up his clipboard, scans the eight of us, and says, “Pell, you and Irik go check on the hidden stairway and cistern, Rasen and—”

  I bolt up. “Jude, I’ve got it. I can check on those by myself.” I bite down on fear that an aftershock might hit while I’m inspecting them, but there’s no way I’ll go anywhere with my co-supervisor, especially alone.

  Jude shrugs. “Fine, then, Irik, go with Rasen and have a look at grave circle A.”

  Irik smirks.

  Imbecile.

  Jude continues giving assignments, but I snatch my headlamp from where it fell, then stride around the mess on the floor, making my way to the supply closet. Thankfully, the tall cabinet remains upright and its thin steel doors are still shut but not for long because compasses, measuring tapes, plumb bobs, and more lurch for freedom the instant I turn the handle. I duck and cover my head until the avalanche finishes.

  “Damn,” I mumble under my breath.

  “You okay there, Pell?” Jude asks, pausing from giving assignments.

  Peachy, can’t you tell? I bite back my retort as all eight males stare at me. No guys, no need to offer a girl a little help.

  Irik silent claps, out of Jude’s line of sight.

  I ignore him.

  “I’m fine, sorry,” I reply.

  I start returning things to their proper shelves, but Jude interrupts me over the noise I create, “Pell, how about we clean things up later.”

  I bob my head and swallow a huff. Fine.

  Grabbing a heavy-duty Maglite flashlight from the scattered equipment, I hightail
it out of the tent before Jude changes his mind.

  As the tent flap slides shut behind me, I exhale heavily.

  Men.

  A strong gust of rain-slicked wind tears into me before I can grumble more, and I zip my mud-stained parka as the cold takes another bite out of me; only residual heat from my lingering anger keeps me warm. I don my headlamp, pull up my hood, and thrust my hands into my pockets. Cradling the flashlight in the crook of my arm, I set off toward the secret stairway and cistern on the far side of the site.

  I pity the ancient Mycenaeans. This weather tests even the hardiest of folk, and I’m not one. No doubt, it was a contributing factor to their demise.

  The wind continues buffeting me as I hike across the site that’s vacant save for the wheelbarrows, picks, shovels, and a host of other digging equipment. My socks grow wet as my boots squelch in puddles that have grown too big to avoid as I skirt around the plethora of perfectly square excavation pits that can’t be worked again until the standing water evaporates.

  Just two more years of fieldwork and I can apply for a curator position at pretty much any museum. It’s been my ambition since early on.

  No one becomes an archeologist to get rich. Fieldwork is backbreaking; the repetitive actions, day in and day out, especially when cold and damp seep into your limbs and produce ongoing physical health issues. It’s why Jude won’t be checking on any of the dig sites himself today.

  No, I’ve become an archeologist because I love discovering the unknown, filling in gaps in the history books. It’s what makes me get up every day. Well, that and… I rub the silver ring on my finger that bears a host of hieroglyphs. Never once have I taken it off.

  My nose starts running, and I scrounge in my pocket and find a tissue as I press on. Will I ever be warm or dry again?

  The Mycenaeans were the most powerful Bronze Age kingdom and lasted nearly five hundred years. Considering my home, the United States, has existed for not quite half that long and our political environment has already become toxic, I have nothing but respect for them.

  They were a warring people, ruled by military leaders, who pillaged and robbed their neighbors, bringing them power and prosperity. Their settlements were heavily fortified with colossal perimeter walls that protected them if their neighbors decided to fight back. Perhaps we can take a few lessons from them, not the pillaging part, but in maintaining order and discipline in their leadership.

  I follow what remains of the city wall to my left and pass the site of the postern gate; soon I approach the cistern at the farthest corner of the massive wall. Its arched entrance is the only opening in the towering surface of rough-hewn stone.

  The secret stairway is a set of ninety-nine steps down to a cistern deep beneath the wall that was connected by pipes running under it to a spring outside. The cistern is a stroke of genius, if you ask me, because it protected their water supply in times of siege, even if they were the aggressors most times and deserved whatever pushback they got.

  I wipe drizzle from my face and squint through the driving raindrops. Conditions make the light dim, so I switch on my headlamp as well as the flashlight as I stop before the opening and peer in. The light bounces back from the haze that obscures the curving stone stairway and the chalky smell of newly exposed limestone fills my nostrils.

  My heart sinks.

  How much history has been destroyed?

  Chapter Two

  Rain pelts my backside, and my stomach tenses as I squint through the dust at the huge limestone blocks that have been crafted to form the ceiling above the stairway. They remind me of two tall stacks of books that have toppled into one another and whose tops now rest against each other.

  There’s no mortar, not that after all these eons it would hold, and I can’t tell if the quake has shifted one or several of the blocks, leaving the slightest jarring—like an aftershock while I’m down there—to make them fall like a house of cards.

  But there’s no way I’m going back and asking for help. Just shoot me. I’d never hear the end of it.

  Gold eye. Silver eye. Gold eye. Silver eye.

  I force myself to envision those sparkling eyes once more, and when I have them firmly in mind, I blow out a long breath, telling myself it isn’t my time to die, not under a pile of fallen rock. What an anticlimactic way to go. That won’t be this girl’s end. It won’t.

  My imaginary god who’s always calmed me seems to agree, at least that’s my story as a strong gust of wind pushes me forward.

  “Okay. Okay. I’m going.”

  I pull my hood back, then shine my flashlight at the first limestone step not immediately seeing any new cracks. That’s a good sign, right?

  With both my headlamp as well as the flashlight beam on, the shadows undulate erratically every time I move, but there’s no way I’ll turn either one off.

  Okay, here goes. I have a habit of talking to myself, and it helps calm me as I take the first step down.

  Two, three… At least I’m out of the brutal elements. I place a hand on the rough limestones as I ease forward, scrutinizing every inch of the roof, then the step, before committing.

  Ten, eleven, twelve… twenty… A chill runs up my spine and my body quivers. From the cold. Definitely from the cold.

  Gold eye. Silver eye. Gold eye. Silver eye.

  “I’d like to request no aftershocks, please,” I ask nicely. If my pretend god is listening, I hope he’ll take pity on me.

  Thirty, thirty-one. I inhale, then sneeze from all the chalky dust motes dancing in the frigid air. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath. The dust has grown thicker with each step, and I can barely see four feet ahead; a claustrophobic feeling assaults me. Combined with the disorientation from the two opposing lights, I nearly turn around.

  “Stop being a weenie. Just do it,” I tell myself. I clench my jaw and force myself to take another step.

  Forty, forty-one… fifty… sixty… seventy. Only twenty-nine more steps, not that I’m counting. Gold eye. Silver eye.

  I scour the space for the stone lintel and jambs of a doorway I know to be at the bottom of the stairs. Through it, then around a corner to the left, the deep cistern I seek hopefully still holds a city’s worth of water.

  Eighty, eighty-one… Ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two. Again I shine my flashlight up at the ceiling searching for stones out of alignment. Still good.

  The doorway. There it is. I sigh as I spot all three parts, the lintel across the top of the two vertical stone jambs, still in place. It’s a thing of beauty. But three steps more and I discover stones scattered beneath it.

  Damn. Has the cistern been reduced to a rock pile? Please no. It’s an archeological treasure.

  I train my flashlight on the uneven floor as I finger the wall for balance and mount the debris. My boots struggle to find footing on the loose rock that’s scattered about, but I finally succeed, then turn the corner.

  And stop.

  The cistern’s to the left, but the debris is mounded to the right. Hope bubbles up.

  I step over more fallen rock and the rubble thins as I find the wet edge of the cistern.

  I hold my breath as I inspect my objective.

  My two lights continue casting conflicting shadows and make it hard to tell what’s what, but as I scrutinize every inch of the probably seven-foot-high, and equally deep limestone blocks of the left wall, they appear undisturbed.

  My heart picks up pace. Maybe it’s okay.

  I trace the right wall similarly, top to bottom, back to front, to the same result. The far wall is harder to make out in the haze, but after several minutes of inspection, its stones also appear strong, with none out of place.

  My heart pitter patters. It just might be okay. All of it.

  I stare at the cistern’s dark waters but can’t tell what damage, if any, has occurred beneath the surface, but if everything above the water’s intact, my best guess is that only the water has been disturbed.

  I exhale. The cistern�
��s unharmed, and history has been spared, at least as far as the cistern goes. Hopefully the rest of the site is equally whole.

  A grating sound, that of rough stone sliding across rough stone, makes my heart nearly stop, and I pivot, then jerk my flashlight up and around, running the light across the ceiling and walls.

  Gold eye. Silver eye. Gold eye. Silver eye.

  All I need is to find all’s well with the cistern but have this whole section of the wall fall on my head.

  My heart jumps into my throat when a huge stone thuds not far away, a second later. The floor trembles as it absorbs the crushing weight.

  Gold eye. Silver eye. Gold eye. Silver eye.

  My legs beg to dash for safety, but I resist because the haze has thinned as I’ve studied the cistern, the dust drifting up the stairs, and I can see maybe ten feet, enough to take in a gaping hole in the wall that I missed in the thick dust.

  Fear gives way to fascination and my pulse accelerates.

  Curiosity is strong with this one. The co-opted phrase jogs around my brain. What ancient find might I discover?

  I clamber like a mountain goat over the mound of displaced rock, but in my haste, my foot lands unevenly and my arms peddle for purchase to no avail.

  “Whoa!”

  My palms feel the sting of the rough limestone first, then my elbow and hip land hard, smarting. Call me Grace. Hopefully, I haven’t crushed my phone.

  The Maglite shines at me from just inside the gaping hole where it came to rest, as if bragging that it beat me to it, unscathed. I mutter several particularly unladylike words before grunting to standing. I shake my smarting hands, trying to ease the pain. I’ve skinned both and one leeches blood, but I won’t die.

  I move my arm in and out, making sure my elbow still functions. It does. Thank god for padded parkas. My hip will have a beautiful bruise, but nothing else seems hurt.

  Good thing Irik and the others didn’t witness my fall from grace. I roll my eyes, that’s all I’d have needed.

  I unbutton the hip pocket of my cargo pants, then hold my rubber gloves back as I pull out my phone. “Great, just great.” The glass has shattered. I blow out a breath. I’ll deal with it later. I tuck it back in my pants and refocus.