Travel Tales series | An original serial story set in Ancient Türkiye

Alya didn’t invite him in. She stepped aside silently, the weight of generations heavy in her chest.

The jackal-eyed man entered with a stillness that disturbed the air itself. He paused beside the fireplace, eyes drawn to the obsidian pendant that glowed faintly in the candlelight. His gaze dropped to the scroll, still half-open on the table. Recognition flickered across his face;  not surprise, but familiarity.

“I was told it was lost,” he said softly, “buried beneath the Temple of the Nine Mouths.”

Alya blinked. No one had uttered that name aloud in centuries.

“I don’t know you,” she said firmly, though her hands trembled. “But the ring you wear… it bears the mark of the First Betrayer. The man who broke the oath and cursed the land.”

The stranger nodded slowly. “My name is Kael. My bloodline carries his shame.”

He reached into his satchel and pulled out a map not modern, but drawn on brittle parchment, with markings that matched those on Alya’s scroll. He placed it between them.

“There are four seals,” Kael said. “The gods placed them across the land to hold the Obsidian Oath in place. But they are weakening. The first seal broke last moon. You must have felt it.”

Alya remembered the earth trembling beneath her feet, the sudden death of all the olive trees in the western grove. She had buried the dead birds with shaking hands.

“I did,” she whispered.

Kael stepped closer. “We don’t have much time. The second seal is beneath the crypt at Çatalhöyük. If it breaks, the darkness will rise through the forgotten bones of the city.”

Alya studied his face. His jaw was steady, his eyes filled with truths he wasn’t yet telling. And still… she felt drawn to him, as if some invisible thread wove their fates tightly together.

She should have sent him away.

But instead, she asked, “What do we need to do?”

Travel Footnote:

Çatalhöyük is one of the world’s oldest known cities, dating back to 7500 BC. Buried beneath layers of ancient earth, its ceremonial burial crypts still puzzle archaeologists with their alignment to celestial events.

Next Chapter:

Chapter 4: The Temple Beneath the Skin

Some gods do not wait to be awakened. Some are already walking, wearing the faces of men.