City of Bones
Chapter 8: City of Bones
Amara's breath caught.
A sharp gasp of salt-laced air, thick with dust, destiny—and something far older than either.
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A City of Bones
She stood at the edge of the ruins.
A speck against colossal stone bones, shattered and forgotten.
The air felt charged, as if the island had just exhaled lightning and dared her to breathe it in.
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This wasn't a place that predated history.
This was a place that rejected it.
Spat it out.
Buried it.
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Arches, once magnificent, now slumped like dying titans.
Blocks lay scattered across the dead ground like broken teeth.
Statues—gods, beasts, warriors—had been softened by time until only grief remained in their blurred faces.
Every stone mourned something.
Every path whispered "turn back."
But Amara kept walking.
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A deep, thrumming pulse rose beneath her boots.
Through the stone. Through her bones.
Through the satchel strapped tight against her ribs.
> Thrum.
It matched her heartbeat.
Her saber's hum.
Her blood.
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She touched a broken wall—cold, slick with moss and memory—and felt it.
> I've been here before.
Not in this life.
Not in any dream she remembered.
But her blood knew these stones.
Her ancestors had walked these halls.
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And in that moment, she knew:
> This was where it began.
The curse.
The sorrow.
The inheritance of ruin that had seeped into her home, her hearth, her name.
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And… this was where her mother had vanished.
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The realization didn't knock the breath from her.
It stole it.
Crushed it in her lungs.
Replaced it with ash and fire.
Her mother hadn't left.
Hadn't run.
She had been claimed.
By this place.
By the blade.
By whatever legacy still rotted beneath the earth.
And maybe—maybe—she had never left at all.
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The Sky-Smith's Memory
As Amara crossed the final threshold—
> The ruins awoke.
Blue light arced across shattered stone like lightning trapped in stained glass.
Glyphs—older than known language—ignited along the walls.
The very air pulsed.
Thick. Heavy. Watching.
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Time bent.
Magic stirred.
The island exhaled… and spoke.
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Amara stumbled forward, clutching the satchel. It burned hot now, searing through the canvas like it wanted out.
A beacon pulsed ahead.
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At the edge of the cliff—where jungle ended and the sea roared far below—a pedestal stood buried in vines and rot.
Something waited there.
Patient. Silent.
Old as the sky.
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Her hands trembled. She clawed through the ivy, scraped skin and knuckles raw, flung moss and memory aside.
> Thrum.
The sound deepened.
Not sound.
Memory.
Inheritance.
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She tore the last of the vines away—
And there it was.
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Not a sword.
Not a relic.
> A prophecy with a blade.
A future forged in falling stars.
A destiny, not yet whole.
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Amara reached forward.
And the world held its breath.