Raven's Strike (Raven #2)(86)

"She looks as though she might breathe," said Phoran, striding across the room and bounding up the steps until he could touch the robes of the goddess caught in stone, then painted with such attention to detail that Seraph almost expected the fabric to move.

Phoran's head just reached the goddess's knee. Above him she rose, bare from the waist up. Her skirts, painted bright blue with green-and-yellow geometric patterns, were caught in a belt at her hip - the belt clasp was in the shape of an owl. In one hand she held a small harp, the other hand was stretched out toward the room.

Her hair, very nearly the color of Seraph's own, was cut short, and either some quirk of accident or the subtlety of the artist made the fine strands look like the hairs of a feather. But it was her face that really drew Seraph's attention. The artist had depicted her with a gamine grin so full of life Seraph had to fight the urge to smile in return.

"The goddess of music," said Hennea. "Kassiah the Owl."

Seraph turned to look at the other Raven because she'd sounded a little tense. "How do you know that?"

"It's written on her belt." Hennea sounded like her usual self again, and Seraph could read nothing in her peaceful mien.

"I always wondered why the Bardic Order was the owl rather than a songbird - like a lark or canary," said Tier.

"It still doesn't really explain it," said Lehr after a moment. "I mean, why does she have an owl rather than a songbird?" He ran his fingers over the stone of her skirts. "I like her."

"She's dead," said Hennea. "It doesn't matter whether you like her or not."

Tier frowned at her. "I thought Travelers didn't have any gods."

"Travelers don't," said Seraph. "But it looks like the Elder Wizards did. I wonder why they left them behind?"

"Dead gods don't need believers," Hennea said tightly.

Seraph frowned at Hennea's odd agitation - she wasn't the only one who noticed. Jes, who'd been wandering around the room, turned abruptly and strode across the room to Hennea.

"It happened a long time ago," he said. "Don't be angry."

Hennea closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again she'd regained her usual air of peacefulness. "I'm sorry. I don't know why this should..." Her voice trailed off as her gaze crossed Tier's. "You're right, Jes. It's stupid to get upset about something that happened so long ago. Let's let the past lie behind us, where it belongs. It's just this city. It's so empty." She took a deep breath. "We need to find the library and see if we can get in."

There were no sounds but the ones they made, none of the smells that Seraph associated with human habitation: beer brewing, bread baking, smoky incense mingling with the less pleasant smells of sweat, sewage, and rotting food. That was not to say that there were no smells, but they were the wrong smells.

The former inhabitants of Colossae hadn't bothered with a small zigzag path up the cliffs like the Rederni. Instead they'd built a giant ramp. Seraph, looking up the gradual slope of the ramp marveled silently at the wealth that would allow such construction.

Though at first everyone had been pointing out the wonders of the city, they'd all eventually fallen silent. Not even the massive ramp, cobbled with rough-surfaced stones that gave hooves good purchase on the climb and must have required replacing on a regular bases, drew comment. Overwhelmed, she thought.

But she wasn't here as a tourist. She let her eyes return to Tier, who was talking with Phoran. She'd have to put her faith in Brewydd's foresight and believe that there were answers here.

The houses were more spread out on the upper reaches of Colossae than they had been below, and, to Seraph's eye, the curious holes in Colossae's magic where buildings had fallen into rubble were more common, too. Sometimes there were two or three in a single block.

The road they followed turned abruptly, and the houses fell behind them as they rode through elaborate gardens full of varieties of flowering plants Seraph had never seen before.

"I wonder what season it was when Colossae was ensorcelled." Tier looked around them dreamily, and Seraph could almost hear the story he was composing in his head. "I don't see many flowers that I know. I wonder if it was spring or summer."

"I don't like this," said Jes. "It's like Colbern."

"Shadow-touched?" Seraph straightened in the saddle.

"No," Lehr said. "Dead. I feel it, too."

"There's the library." Hennea pushed her horse into a trot and headed for a large building in the center of the gardens.

"It looks like the palace in Taela," Phoran told Rinnie, as they took a slower pace than her parents and brothers, who had rushed off after Hennea. "Though the palace is considerably bigger."

Toarsen, who'd overheard his comment, took another look at the building. "It is smaller," he said. "And it looks like some effort was made to make it pleasing to the eye. But I can see what you mean. This started as a small building and just kept growing."

"Your palace is bigger than this?" asked Rinnie, and looked as though she might be awestruck by him again. Phoran couldn't have that.

"Stupidly big," he admitted. "And ugly. And impossible to keep repaired. There's a leak in the eating hall that has been there for three generations. No one can figure out where the water is coming from."