Night descended as they skirted a headland and traveled along Athos’s coastline, heading south, passing tiny coves and long sandy beaches, barely discernible in the starlight. Continuing to follow a long stretch of white shoreline with curling breakers pounding on the sand, Kargan took the ship closer to the shallow water, so that she lifted and fell with every line of waves traveling underneath her. Hearing the roar of the crashing surf, mesmerized by the white spray, Chloe hoped Kargan wouldn’t attempt a landing, for the waves would throw the ship heavily forward, and she couldn’t see how it could be managed without the bireme breaking up.

Then they rounded another headland and came still closer to shore, but the water here was calmer, and Chloe saw that they were heading into a narrow cove. The sudden calm filled her with relief as she realized they must be close to their destination.

The drum pounded as the oars crashed into the water, pulled the ship forward, lifted out, and plunged in once more. Kargan ordered the sail to be lowered.

Peering ahead, to where they would be landing on a strip of white sand, Chloe gasped, gazing for the first time at the sacred site.

The land here was treeless, devoid of any plants at all. Structures of fitted stone melded with the shape of rock and crag to create a place where the manmade and the natural collided. But there was also a third force present, something strange and ethereal, for there were flames everywhere, burning fires erupting out of the rock, the flames all different colors: blue, emerald, crimson, and gold.

Above the beach was a domed hill, shaped like a horseshoe that had been bent out of shape. It rose out of the ground a mile from shore, dominating the area around.

Tall monoliths were erected at various places along the top of the hill, facing the water, a spiked crown of smooth white stones. Each the height of five men, the one thing binding them all together was their precarious position. Chloe couldn’t see how they could have been placed at such heights.

Stone temples were set snugly into clefts in the rock and crowned two of the tallest cliffs, but Chloe’s eye was drawn to one place above all.

Set into the hill was a cave.

The black entrance, huge and craggy, formed a gaping maw that beckoned as much as it filled her with foreboding. Revealed in the flames, a snaking path of brilliant blue stone led down from the cave, between the fires, ending at a gap in a long stone wall that followed the shore. The message was clear: this path led to one place only.

Chloe tore her eyes away from the cave with difficulty.