All things considered, much about the island hadn't changed at all. But she had.
Lara's expression hardened as she ran from one pillar to another, firing a shot as she went. The bullet found its target, just as she knew it would. The man, dressed in what looked like the latest shabby Solarii fashions, fell to his knees, grasping at his chest where the bullet had hit him.
There had been so many faces that flashed through her mind in the weeks after Yamatai. The faces of some of the men she'd killed had haunted her, day and night. Lifeless eyes staring at her, mouths agape and necks twisted. So many bloodied faces. Lara had killed since then. She'd had to. The faces had never stuck with her after that though.
One down, but she detected two more.
Trying to reason with the Solarii had never worked before, and she'd just killed one of them, so she doubted the others would want to chit chat. Still, she wanted answers.
"Himiko is dead!" she called out from behind her cover. "Why do you still worship her?"
An arrow whizzed right past her in response. She darted out the same side that the arrow had come from – enemies like these tended to think she'd run the other way – and fired a shot, narrowly missing her target. Another shot from her second pistol was successful, though, blasting through the side of the man's head, creating a bloody mess that Lara remained numb to.
The last remaining target let out a whimper. More cautious than the others, he managed to avoid Lara's gunfire until now. But he was also more cowardly.
"We don't worship Himiko anymore," he offered.
Lara could hear that his voice came from just outside the large ornate doorway that served as the main entrance of the temple. She glanced around the pillar, guns ready. He probably thought he could trick her to come out from her hiding spot if he offered information.
"Then why are you here?" Lara called out.
No immediate response. Lara listened out for footsteps, but couldn't hear any. Her eyes darted around. Surely he was using this time to close in on her.
The voice came from the same spot as before, though. "We can't leave."
"The curse was broken years ago!" Lara replied. "It doesn't have to be like this. Himiko is dead!"
"It's no longer the Sun Queen that binds us here," the Solarii explained.
"Then what's keeping you here?" Lara asked, frustrated.
"The Sun King," he replied.
"Sun King?" Lara whispered to herself.
She heard heavy footsteps as the islander began to retreat from the temple. Shit. She couldn't let him get away. He'd warn the others of her presence. Also, she wanted to try and get more answers out of him.
Heading straight for the entrance, guns still drawn, Lara called out, "Wait!"
The Solarii was ahead of her, running without looking back. About to head around the side of the mountain on a pathway that would have obscured her view of him, Lara had a split second to make a decision. She fired three shots, aimed at his legs. One of them hit their mark, and he screamed and fell.
Running over to his location as quickly as possible, Lara kept her guns pointed at him.
"Help!" he cried out, with a long groan of pain after that.
Despite his help so far, Lara had to be ruthless. She stood about a metre away from him, with one pistol aimed straight at his head. "Make another sound, and you'll find bullets lodged in more than just your leg."
The man glanced out towards the valley, and Lara's eyes followed for just a second. They were on a narrow pathway on the edge of a cliff that formed part of the side of the mountain. Part of the same steep rock that Lara had climbed to reach the temple. A fall straight down would be fatal. He looked back up at her.
"That's right," Lara said, her tone cold. "There's nowhere to run."
The Solarii looked up at the sky. Thick, dark clouds had gathered while Lara had been inside the temple. It was surely just an ordinary storm. The chances that this was happening all over again were low.
"He is angry," the main said quietly.
"Who is this Sun King?" she demanded. Her voice shook just a little, breaking her confident façade.
Just out of her reach, Lara had no time to grab the man before he used his arms and his one good leg to throw himself over the edge of the cliff. He went down without a sound, and with the rising wind, Lara couldn't even hear as his body hit the ground. She peered over the edge though, to make sure he was dead. Indeed, his body lay below, his limbs splayed out in every direction.
The Sun King. Who could he be? Did he really exist? While he would have been an obvious suspect for such madness, there was no way Mathias could have survived. Lara was so sure of it, so ruled him out as a possibility. Perhaps another one of the Solarii had grown power hungry after Himiko's death. There couldn't have been too many of them left, though.
The other option was that someone had come to the island and had found the crown, as Alister had feared. The artefact hadn't been where it should have. Deep down, Lara hadn't truly expected it to be. But the evidence pointed to someone being in possession of it now, and abusing its power.
Making her way back toward the temple, Lara decided to loot the other two dead Solarii for anything that could be useful. It looked like she might need to be here for longer than she'd intended.