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  Uru’s Third Temple

  A. F. Kay

  Uru’s Third Temple, Divine Apostasy Book 3 by A. F. Kay

  afkauthor.com

  Copyright © 2020 by A. F. Kay

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law or in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews or articles. For permission requests, contact the publisher at blackpyramidpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Black Pyramid Press, LLC

  blackpyramidpress.com

  Editing by coraljenrette.com

  Cover by coverquill.com

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Epilogue

  Appendix

  Acknowledgments

  Special Thanks

  Author’s Note

  Dedication

  For Jason,

  a true Architect.

  Prologue

  Tremine shelved the last of the returned books and turned to leave the aisle. A small figure wrapped in a brown cloak stood at the entrance of the aisle, and Tremine’s heartbeat quickened in surprise. He hadn’t heard them approach.

  The cloak’s hood kept the figure’s face in shadow, and they stood motionless. They looked thin and not much over five feet tall, but Tremine had long ago stopped equating appearance with danger.

  “Can I help you?” Tremine asked.

  “I hope so,” Uru said.

  Tremine’s heart thudded in his chest. Not from fear, but at the danger Uru exposed herself to by manifesting here in the Material Realm.

  Trying to calm himself, Tremine crossed his arms over his chest and bowed low. “Forgive me, but why do you take these unnecessary risks? You should have summoned me to your realm.”

  Uru stepped closer, looked up at Tremine, and gave him a slight smile. “The risk to me here is small. Naktos is watching to see what you do with the book. If you disappeared into my Divine Realm, it would tip our hand. Naktos, if given cause to suspect I had tricked him, might take his frustration into the Spirit Realm. Our friends there have enough problems, don’t you think?”

  Guilt, always near the surface of Tremine’s thoughts, jerked him under, drowning him in self-loathing. For a moment, he couldn’t speak.

  Uru put a hand on Tremine’s arm. “Stop. You’re not being fair to yourself. Kaylin wasn’t your fault, and Una and Mica agreed.”

  It felt like someone had grabbed his heart and squeezed it into a pulp. He forced the words out. “Ruwen didn’t.”

  Uru dropped her hand. “But that was my decision. With so many lives at stake, his reaction had to be genuine. Naktos must continue to believe his spell is permanent. And while someday Ruwen will be someone to fear, right now, he is a naïve sixteen-year-old.”

  Tremine nodded, his throat too tight to speak. He swallowed hard and forced the words out. “I haven’t slept. I can’t stop wondering what his first day has been like.”

  Uru spoke softly. “Time is irregular in the Spirit Realm. A week may have already passed for him, or no time at all.” She sighed. “I know how difficult that was for you. But he’s smart and has probably figured some of it out. He will for sure when the other Champions find him.”

  “If you’d seen the look on his face,” Tremine whispered.

  Uru’s eyes hardened. “I know it. Many have suffered so my plans could take shape. None of them have the balm of an explanation. Only the pressing weight of an unfair life. Thousands of betrayals, all necessary to keep us on the proper path, but each like a dagger in my heart.”

  Tremine bowed again. “Please forgive me. I forget my place and how small my burdens are.”

  Uru pulled Tremine up. “There is nothing to forgive.”

  Tremine took a deep breath. “Let me fetch the book.”

  He hurried through the empty library, only slowing when he entered the shelves containing alchemy and science books. Stopping, he reached up and removed the book Terium Vein Survey he’d received from the Naktos Mage.

  “You hid it with the dimensional math books?” Uru asked.

  “Ruwen was the only one who ever used this section. I thought it fitting. Plus, Ky always tells me plain sight is the best vault,” Tremine said, holding the book out.

  Uru took the book and ran a finger across the title.

  Tremine cleared his throat nervously. “What is so valuable about it?”

  Uru looked up at him and gave a small smile. “You never looked inside?”

  He shook his head. Few things were more powerful than his curiosity, but overwhelming guilt coupled with the fear of upsetting a deity had made ignoring this book easy.

  Uru handed the book back to Tremine. “Take a look and tell me what you think.”

  Tremine hesitated as his curiosity warred with his guilt. But the permission of his goddess pushed him forward. With a trembling hand, he took the book and opened it.

  Tremine didn’t recognize the dates, but many books were like that, coming from cultures with unique methods for measuring time. Each page contained multiple rows of runes, grouped in threes. Tremine guessed, like the middle values in gate runes, they were points on the planet. Next to each set of runes, density and purity values were listed.

  The middle of the book contained pages of carefully drawn cross-sections of the planet. The pictures detailed the shape and size of twelve immense terium deposits, along with large veins snaking through the planet. One thing became immediately clear to Tremine.

  “Is most of the planet terium?” Tremine asked in shock.

  “Yes,” Uru said.

  Tremine carefully closed the book
and handed it back to Uru. “They why bother with a survey? It looks like no matter where you are, if you dig deep enough, you’ll eventually find terium.”

  Uru placed the book in the inner pocket of her cloak. “But I’m not looking for terium. I’m looking for something much more valuable.”

  Tremine shook his head, stunned. What could be more valuable than terium? Before he could ask, Uru spoke again.

  “Kysandra will arrive here tonight. You will help her as she activates her network. We are entering one of the most dangerous parts of my plan, and we will need her people to buy us time. We were always in danger of an invasion, but losing the fourth Champion will embolden my peers and accelerate their plans. I have shaped the events that brought us here, but now the path forward is murky, and my control of them is mostly gone. If Ruwen doesn’t return with everyone soon, we are doomed.”

  “Then why allow your Champions to be taken in the first place?” Tremine blurted out and then immediately bowed. “I apologize. It is not my place to question.”

  Uru laughed softly. “It’s fine. I don’t get to brag often. When Naktos put Kaylin in the Spirit Realm it shocked all of us. But he opened my eyes to possibilities I had never considered. That one act allowed me to see a path forward from the stalemate I found myself in.”

  “I don’t understand,” Tremine said.

  “Naktos locked my Champions away and weakened me, yes. But this also kept the Champions away from the danger of the Material Realm and all the deities that wanted to destroy them. In exchange for making my Champions untouchable, Naktos, through you, has provided me with knowledge I had no other way of attaining.”

  “So you benefited two ways,” Tremine said. “But Naktos must be sure they are stuck. Can’t you just bring them back yourself?”

  “I could, but that would violate the Pact. If I saved them, all the deities would unite against us, and we aren’t ready for that yet.”

  “Yet? You can fight all the gods?”

  Uru’s smile turned into a grin. “No, I can’t. But when I found Kaylin in the Spirit Realm, I realized something else. Something that will change the universe. Fix it.”

  Tremine didn’t know what Uru meant by fixing the universe, but the goddess continued talking, like the dam that held her cleverness had burst.

  “And what Kaylin allowed me to see took me three tries to perfect. Una and Mica were each an experiment that took me a step closer.”

  “Closer to what?”

  Uru leaned in close to Tremine and whispered, “To creating a god.”

  Chapter 1

  The screams grew louder as Ruwen made his way up the dungeon’s tunnel. Thoughts of Tremine’s betrayal warred with the fact that the librarian had secretly given Ruwen portal chalk just before the Naktos Mage forced Ruwen and his friends into the Spirit Realm. Ruwen had immediately needed to wrap his face and hands to keep his Spirit from blinding people in this terrible place. Worse, his interface remained useless, keeping him from accessing any information, and his Void Band didn’t work, locking him out of his Inventory. The tunnel ended in a cavern and agonized moans joined the terrified screams. He slowed, wary of an ambush.

  Ten feet into the cavern, Slib’s bodyguard, House Captain Juva, lay on the stone floor. In two pieces. Something had ripped him in half at the waist, but Ruwen didn’t see any blood.

  The moans were coming from Juva, and Ruwen stopped in shock that the man could make any sound at all. An injury like that should have killed him instantly.

  Juva turned his head and looked at Ruwen. “It hurts.”

  Ruwen gasped.

  The Naktos Assassin that Ruwen’s dungeon, Fractal, had provided, stepped up next to Ruwen. The assassin’s eyes were dull and void of any intelligence. Ruwen figured that had something to do with the assassin already being dead when Ruwen had dropped the body out of his Void Band before the betrayal. Fractal had absorbed the body in the Material Realm and then given it back to Ruwen in the Spirit Realm.

  “Help me,” Juva said and used his arm to pull his top half toward Ruwen.

  “Uru save me, how is he still alive?” Hamma asked as she moved forward.

  Ruwen held out his arm and stopped her. “It could be a trap. We don’t have Keen Senses or Sense Harm to warn us here.”

  Hamma nodded and stopped.

  “It looks like the guilt of ambushing us has really torn him up,” Sift said.

  “Sift!” Hamma said.

  “What? That guy put a crossbow bolt in my heart,” Sift said. “You die like you live.”

  “Except he doesn’t look dead,” Lylan said.

  “Please, help Slib,” Juva said as he pulled himself another few inches toward them and then pointed to somewhere Ruwen couldn’t see.

  The sight of Juva’s gruesome injuries sickened Ruwen. He realized the screaming from the cavern had stopped, but he didn’t want to risk his friends to find out why, so he turned to the assassin.

  “Do you have a name?” Ruwen asked the dead assassin.

  The figure just stared at him with eyes glazed and unfocused.

  “Your name is now Nak. Carefully check the cavern outside the tunnel for a trap,” Ruwen said.

  Nak turned without responding and leaped forward, landing just inside the end of the tunnel. Nak climbed the twenty-foot wall and eased his head into the cavern. He looked up and to both sides and then dropped to the ground.

  “Safe,” Nak said.

  Juva had pulled the top part of his body almost to the tunnel entrance. Ruwen strode forward, grabbed Juva’s outstretched arms, and pulled him into the tunnel.

  Hamma knelt next to Juva. “What happened?”

  “Creature in the cavern. My swords didn’t damage it all. Please check on Slib,” Juva said, his face twisted in agony.

  “How can this guy be alive?” Sift asked from beside him.

  Ruwen looked at his friend and noticed what looked like wisps of smoke between them. The fine threads of light drifted from Ruwen and when they touched Sift, they disappeared into his body.

  “Hey, stop stealing my Spirit!” Ruwen said as he waved his hand through the air between them, but his hand passed through the traces of Spirit and didn’t affect them at all.

  Ruwen took a few steps away from Sift and tucked his shirt into his pants. The webs of Spirit disappeared between them.

  Sift pulled up his shirt, and Ruwen could see Sift’s center now had a faint glow.

  “I’ve never seen my sifting happen before,” Sift said.

  Ruwen pointed at Sift. “You stay away from me.”

  Sift dropped his shirt and spread his arms. “I don’t know. A hug might do you good.”

  Ruwen took another step away from Sift.

  “Slib, please,” Juva gasped.

  Ruwen looked down at the mangled bodyguard. He had mixed feelings about helping the man. Not only had Juva tried to kill Ruwen, multiple times, but Juva and Slib had run away from the group at the first opportunity.

  “Sift, why don’t you and Lylan scout the cavern,” Ruwen said.

  Sift nodded, and he and Lylan left the tunnel. Ruwen followed them, but paused before entering the cavern. Nak hadn’t moved and stared dully at Ruwen.

  “Watch my back,” Ruwen said. “Actually, let me be more clear. Watch for danger and warn me if you see something. Understand?”

  Nak nodded, and Ruwen glanced around the corner of the entrance. When he looked right, a large creature sat a hundred feet away. It hunched over something, probably Slib, and its focus seemed concentrated there.

  Ruwen strode to the bottom half of Juva’s body, grabbed a foot, and dragged the partial body into the tunnel. Not knowing what else to do, he brought it to Hamma.

  Hamma looked up at Ruwen. “No organs are hanging out, no blood, nothing. It’s like he’s made of grey clay.”

  Ruwen looked at Juva. “What does it feel like?”

  Juva had his eyes squeezed shut, and he didn’t open them. “Like I’ve been ripped in half.”r />
  “I don’t know what to do for him,” Hamma said. “Our magic doesn’t work here.”

  Ruwen tried to squeeze his bottom lip, but his face wraps got in the way. He bit his lip instead as he stared at Juva’s two halves. It appeared that death didn’t come easily in the Spirit Realm, but pain did. Ruwen knelt, grabbed Juva’s belt, and pulled the bottom half toward Juva’s torso. Hamma, seeing what Ruwen wanted to do, helped.

  When the two pieces touched, nothing appeared to happen, but Juva’s eyes opened.

  “What happened? I feel a little better,” Juva said.

  Ruwen ignored the man and studied the seam where the two halves met. In some places, the grey skin and clothes matched well. While in other areas, inch-wide gaps were visible.

  “Are the two sides melting back together?” Ruwen asked.

  Hamma leaned down. “It’s really slow, but the gaps are filling.”

  Ruwen leaned back, sitting on his feet, and thought about the repercussions of that fact. While there might be ways to die here, normally fatal wounds didn’t appear to be one of them. At least not to the body. Other things might still be lethal, like losing your head or having it smashed into a pulp. He stared down at his chest, and the Spirit his clothes hid. Maybe dying required something to happen to your Spirit.