Uncharted

[Caira Ayryn]

Part Nine, An Unholy Act

They walked for some time as the sun rose and she was able to gain a better look at the empty tanks that appeared as great apertures in the ground, finely carved and connected by visible tracks that seemed to be once lined by a railway. Coruscant's scars.

She took an open breath and shook off the horrible feeling of dread forming in the pit of her stomach - assumed aftereffects of the death potion she had taken on the set of a 'television' show. Whatever that was.

Another day passed and the two soon closed in on a graveyard near ruins on the outskirts of dunes. Caira's distant eyes fell upon the tombs and marking each was a distinct cairn. “Doesn’t resemble buried treasure in my experience. But I suppose it depends on how you look at it.”

“The map says it’s here...” Caira suggested with a trailing of her voice, before catching a look of sorrow weighing on Merik’s eyes as his eyes fixed on three, relatively new looking graves, though they had been battered by sand and sun, they were clean and each singular stone was engraved with a beautiful insignia, like flower petals that surrounded the three names.

Caira frowned, and immediately sensed the change in Merik’s composure. There was an immediate threat that emanated from his smile. Horror cleansed her bones with a chilling effect.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” a sympathetic tone noted her words, allowing a hint of genuine concern to transgress and take that mourning expression from his face. The look that replaced it warned her to run, though Caira was reluctant and Merik smiled for a moment and looked at the stone. It was all he had left of those he had lost all those years ago. Dark, gently chiseled rock and memories obscured by time. "I could summon them again you know, as a Prime. But my own desires have betrayed me, ever since..." his voice trailed off only to return to their objective. “Caira, the treasure I promised and the final key to finding him is buried next to my family, on the edge of this world and away from Coruscant’s clutches, so that they may never find it, nor hold it in their power. However,” he rose, his towering height assumed power over her effortlessly. “When we dig it up, I want you to be warned.”

“Of what, Merik?” Her tone was flat, she didn’t need any of his chicanery, the whole way she had prepared herself, the journey across the Dunes for treason and deception and the nagging in her stomach that wouldn't go away. Would it all turn out to be true?

“You’ll see.”