Intricately beautiful, delicately carved from clay, they ranged in color from deep black to palest white. And while their bodies were perfectly sculpted, their faces remained unfinished, little more than vague ovals, without eyes, ears, nose or mouth. Male and female stood side by side in identical positions, tall, elegant and otherworldly. They looked not unlike the Elders or even the legendary Archons, but were obviously different from those races.

And every inch of their carved clay bodies was covered in the same spiraling script that decorated the front of the building.

Prometheus’s burning aura washed over the closest statues, red sparks running across the designs, crimson fire crawling along the archaic writing, bringing the lines of curling text to life.

“Prometheus…,” Zephaniah whispered.

Then the statue closest to Prometheus, a statuesque female, moved. A sliver of hardened clay fell away and shattered on the ground, revealing dark flesh beneath. Behind the Elder a second statue, a male, shifted slightly, and more clay fell away to expose rich golden skin.

“Little Brother…”

The Elder’s fiery aura blazed higher, leaping from statue to statue, igniting the script with threads of fire. Crackling balls of it dripped off Prometheus’s skin like sweat and rolled along the floor. When they reached a statue, they hissed and surged, and lines of flame crawled up the clay, igniting the writing. When all the writing was burning and the statue was bright with fire, the figure moved, hardened clay cascading off its body to shatter on the floor.

Zephaniah was suddenly aware that her brother’s aura had changed color. It had become darker, almost ugly, and the bitter-sweet smell of anise had become sharp and sour.

“Prometheus!” she shouted in alarm, but he could not hear her. She knew what was happening: his aura had started to consume him.

The Elder’s aura was an inferno now, a solid pillar of fire stretching up to the apex of the pyramid, and Prometheus was almost invisible in the middle of the flames. Fire bounced off the ceiling and fell onto the carvings like burning rain. The heat was overwhelming, washing over the thousands of figures, burning away clay to reveal the flesh beneath.

Zephaniah knew she needed to distract her brother, to disrupt his aura before the fire destroyed him. She desperately pushed her way through the statues. Some toppled and fell, and where the clay shells had not been touched by Prometheus’s aura, they shattered to dust when they hit the floor. When Zephaniah was close enough, she uncoiled the whip and lashed out at her brother, catching him around an outstretched arm. The metal and leather of the weapon instantly glowed bright red and started to burn. She pulled with all her might, and he staggered.

Prometheus’s aura flickered, darkened, then blazed back even brighter. The smell of anise had turned unmistakably foul. Bitter.