Ezra had been following the coil-marked group long enough that he almost expected them to turn on him by now.
The cloth in his pouch was a reminder — they knew. They weren't chasing him, though. If anything, they acted like they'd forgotten. Which was worse.
By the ninth day, he'd stopped waiting for the ambush and started wondering if they were just… letting him keep up. Like bait.
The forest was different here. Not gentler — nothing in this place was — but deliberate. The chaos of tangled vines and random growth gave way to wide lanes between trees, like someone had hacked at the jungle with an axe and kept it that way. The canopy thinned in patches, letting in weak sunlight that painted everything the color of old brass.
Sometimes, his boots hit stone instead of soil. Flat slabs, edges worn down, almost hidden under moss. They ran in lines that didn't match animal paths — too straight, too deliberate.
Roads, Ezra thought. Or what's left of them.
He made a note in his head. Roads meant builders. Builders meant permanence. Permanence meant a place worth defending — and worth raiding.
The group he shadowed didn't speak much. They signaled instead — a flick of fingers, a tilt of the head. Always in pairs. Never alone. When they stopped, it wasn't to rest. They touched certain trees — ones marked with spirals carved so faintly you wouldn't notice unless you were looking. Sometimes they left something there — a pebble, a feather, a strip of hide.
Ezra didn't touch the marks. He kept moving.
By mid-afternoon, the jungle began to drop away beneath him. The slope was gradual at first, then sharper, until he was picking his way down a ridge.
That was when he saw it.
A gap in the canopy. Not a natural one — this was too clean, too broad. The ridge ended in a stone lip, and beyond it…
The basin.
It was massive — a hollow carved into the earth, ringed by sheer cliffs overgrown with trees. At the center, rising like it had been waiting for centuries, stood a stepped pyramid. Not sleek and symmetrical like the ones in academy archives, but scarred and repaired over and over. The stone was dark, veined with creeping moss, but wide swaths of it had been cleared — scraped clean to reveal carved reliefs that caught the sunlight like gold.
Other structures surrounded it — smaller step-temples, pillared courtyards, clusters of low stone huts. Smoke curled from open fire pits. The air shimmered faintly over the plaza, as if the heat had a rhythm of its own.
And the people…
There were more than he'd guessed. Dozens moved through the open spaces. Some carried baskets, others weapons. Children darted between legs, their skin painted with simple lines. Adults bore more elaborate marks — curling spirals across their arms and throats, some filled with a dull gold powder that caught the light when they turned.
He'd seen hunters before, but not like these. The ones in the forest were scouts, lean and quiet. Here, the warriors wore feathered mantles, bone necklaces, and leather bands strung with teeth. Their bows were longer, their quivers heavy. Spears gleamed with stone tips polished smooth.
And everyone, even the smallest child, seemed to know exactly where they were going.
Ezra crouched low behind a ridge of stone, eyes tracking the movement below.
It was organized. Too organized.
No wasted steps. No aimless wandering.
Like the whole place moved to a pulse he couldn't hear.
From his vantage, he could see the broad stairway that climbed the central pyramid. At the top, in the shadow of a towering stone arch, was a relief carved into the wall.
The figure was tall, feminine. Her hair — or what passed for it — flowed down her back in dozens of coiled strands, each tipped with what looked like a flower in bloom. Her eyes were closed, her mouth curved in something too still to be a smile. Around her head was a halo of carved petals, layered like a crown.
Ezra felt something in his jaw tighten.
He didn't know her. He was sure of that.
But the image pulled at something under his ribs, the way a scent could drag a memory to the surface before you realized you'd been holding it under.
He looked away first.
The group he'd been following didn't head straight to the pyramid. Instead, they skirted along the edge of the basin, past low huts and drying racks hung with strips of meat and hide. They spoke to others briefly, trading hand signs and short murmurs. Then they disappeared into one of the side streets.
Ezra stayed where he was until the shadows shifted. He wasn't going down there. Not yet.
For the rest of the day, he worked the ridge, circling the basin from a distance. The cliff wall was steep but climbable in places. He marked the ones with the most cover. Every so often, he'd spot another patrol — groups of three or four, some with dogs the size of small deer. The dogs wore painted collars and moved like they knew exactly which way the wind was supposed to blow.
By nightfall, the basin transformed.
Torches lit along the pyramid steps — not fire-orange, but pale green, flickering like swamp light. Drums began, slow and steady. The sound wasn't loud, but it traveled. Every few beats, a low chant would rise and fall, words too soft to make out.
Ezra sat with his back to the ridge wall, listening.
The rhythm was wrong. Not human wrong — something else. It made his heartbeat slow in ways he didn't like, like it was trying to sync with something older.
He forced himself to focus on practicals. Patrol patterns. Guard positions. Lines of sight.
But his gaze kept drifting to the pyramid, to the carved figure lit by that strange green glow.
She didn't look alive.
She didn't look dead, either.
The tenth day was worse.
The basin didn't sleep — not really. By the time the drums stopped, the first light was already filtering in. Ezra chewed a strip of dried fungus, sipped a mouthful of bitter stream water, and settled in to watch again.
Activity was heavier in the morning. Lines formed at the base of the pyramid — not chaotic, but quiet. People stepped forward in twos, placing their hands on the lowest stair, bowing their heads for a few heartbeats, then moving on.
The hunters from the group he'd been trailing emerged mid-morning, this time carrying bundles wrapped in hide. Offerings? Food? He couldn't tell.
The air smelled faintly of something sweet again — the same cloying scent he'd caught in the plaza yesterday. It clung to the back of his throat.
From somewhere in the lower streets came a sound like wind through hollow bone. Not music, not quite.
He told himself it didn't matter. This was just another faction in the Trial — a dangerous one, sure, but not the goal. Not yet.
And yet…
His fingers brushed the coil-marked cloth in his pouch.
He was here because they wanted him to be.
The only question was why.
He spent the next few hours lying in the same shallow dip of stone, barely moving except to shift the cramp out of his legs.
The basin was a stage, and he wasn't about to blink mid-performance.
The first thing he noticed was the order.
Not the kind born from discipline, like soldiers drilling — this was older, quieter.
Every movement served something.
Even the way the children played had shape to it — little chases that always ended with the same stop, the same bow toward the pyramid before scattering again.
The pyramid itself… it wasn't just stone.
When the sun hit at a certain angle, lines appeared across its surface — thin, branching, like veins under skin. They glimmered faintly before fading again, as if the stone breathed with the light.
He started cataloguing the patterns. It was easier than thinking about why they existed.
By midday, the plaza shifted.
A group of people — all marked from neck to ankle in spirals and floral curves — emerged from the smaller structures and crossed to the pyramid.
They carried no weapons.
Instead, each held a shallow bowl filled with some kind of dark liquid. They climbed the steps together, slow but in sync, until they reached the top.
Ezra tracked them as far as he could, but the lip of the upper platform hid what they did next.
All he caught was the sound — a soft splash, then something like a sigh rolling over the plaza.
The people descended a few minutes later, bowls empty, eyes lowered.
Nobody spoke to them. Nobody had to.
They just melted back into the streets.
Late afternoon brought something else.
A figure in deep green cloth moved through the plaza, flanked by two bowmen.
They weren't like the others — no visible paint, no bare skin except the face.
Their mask was carved wood, shaped like a blooming flower, petals spread wide.
Every few steps, they would pause, scan the plaza, then turn toward some random passerby.
The chosen person would step forward without hesitation, bow, and offer up whatever they were carrying — fruit, hide, a bundle of herbs.
Ezra couldn't hear the exchange, but he saw the way the masked figure touched each offering — fingers brushing, not taking — before handing it back.
A test? A blessing?
The bowmen's eyes stayed on the crowd the whole time.
And then there were the drums.
Not constant. Not even predictable.
They came in small bursts — three slow beats, a pause, then another.
Sometimes from the pyramid, sometimes from deeper in the streets.
Always the same tone.
It was the sound of waiting, Ezra thought.
Not celebration. Not mourning.
Just… holding something in place.
He didn't move closer.
Not because he was afraid — though he wasn't about to pretend he wasn't — but because this was the kind of place that swallowed you without teeth.
Step wrong here, and you didn't get chased out.
You got absorbed.
Painted up.
Given a role you didn't understand until it was too late.
So he stayed on the ridge, letting the civilization unravel in pieces.
It was easier to breathe that way.
Night was worse.
The green torches lit again, but this time they weren't confined to the pyramid.
They appeared in the side streets, in windows, along the edges of the basin.
The glow didn't spread like normal firelight — it clung to surfaces, outlining doors and carvings in a faint, unnatural halo.
The chants returned, too.
Low, wordless — or maybe the words were too old to catch.
They moved like the drums, weaving in and out, never quite landing where you expected.
From up here, it almost looked beautiful.
From down there, he knew, it would feel like a net.
Ezra sat back against the stone, eyes half-closed.
He could leave now.
He could head back into the forest, find another trail, hunt something easier to understand.
But his hand drifted to the coil-marked cloth again.
They'd left it for him.
And that meant they were expecting him to come.
The only question was whether he'd walk in through the front steps…
or find his own way in.