The sky had been bruised all morning, but by midday it finally split open.
Cold rain came down in sheets, turning the north road into slick brown mud beneath the horses’ hooves. Thorn’s bay picked its way carefully through the churn, ears pinned back in obvious disgust. Beside him, Kit’s black mare fared no better, her dark coat shining wet beneath the storm.
Kit’s cloak had plastered itself to her shoulders. Rain found every seam in the oiled leather beneath, sliding cold down her spine and soaking the black lace at her throat until it clung dark and heavy against her skin.
She squinted through the downpour, violet eyes narrowed against the sting.
“This is miserable,” she called over the rain, voice half laugh and half grit. “Can your ranger nose find shelter before we drown out here?”
Thorn glanced at her from beneath the edge of his hood. Water streamed from him in steady lines.
“I don’t know how it’s getting everywhere,” he called back. “But it is. Miserable. Cold too.”
He wiped rain from his face and scanned the road ahead.
“No sense catching a chill before we even meet anything nasty. Can you see anything? You’ve got sharper eyes sometimes than me.”
Kit leaned forward in the saddle, one hand shielding her brow. The road curved between two low rises ahead, both half-hidden by rain and scrub.
“There,” she said, pointing. “Left side of the bluff. Looks like a dark mouth. Could be a cave, or a ruin’s half-swallowed entrance. Hard to tell with the weather chewing everything up.”
She glanced back at him, rain dripping from her lashes.
“Your call, muscle. We push for it or keep looking?”
Thorn gave a brief nod.
“We take a look.”
He nudged his horse forward.
“Stay a little behind me. If something else is trying to get out of this storm, I’d rather it sees me first.”
Kit tightened her reins and eased her mare back a length. One hand settled near the hilt at her hip as her eyes swept the tree line.
“Smart. I’ll cover your flank.”
The rain hammered harder, turning the road to a rushing skin of mud and runoff.
As they drew closer, the shape ahead resolved itself through the storm. It was not a cave after all, but the remains of a small tower. Not a castle. Not even a proper keep. More like an old watchtower, its roof half-gone and its stone walls still stubbornly standing against time and weather.
Kit rode up near Thorn’s flank, studying the dark arch of the entrance.
“Watchtower,” she called. “Old bones of one, anyway. Roof’s half-gone, but the walls still stand. Could be shelter. Could be occupied.”
Thorn swung down from his horse, boots sinking into the mud.
“Close enough. Hop off.”
Kit dismounted in one fluid motion and took hold of both bridles while Thorn approached the entrance. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword, every step cautious.
The interior was mostly open to the sky. Rain fell through gaps in the fractured ceiling, pattering against stone and broken wood. Only one corner remained truly dry, tucked beneath a slant of surviving roof and a section of wall that had not yet surrendered.
Not enough space for both horses and riders.
But enough to keep the animals out of the worst of it.
Thorn circled the room anyway, scanning the shadowed corners. No movement. No tracks fresh enough to matter. No smell of smoke, dung, or recent occupation.
Then his boot struck something that gave a hollow wooden note beneath the mud.
He stopped.
Rain streamed down his face as he looked at the floor.
Half-hidden under mud and scattered stone was a trapdoor. The boards were old but intact, bound with iron bands gone dark with rust. An iron ring lay flat against the wood, nearly swallowed by grime.
Thorn crouched and brushed his fingers along the edge.
“Kit,” he called, voice low. “Floor’s lying to me. There’s a way down.”
Kit led the horses into the dry corner, tying their reins to a rusted iron ring set in the wall. The black mare shook rain from her coat with a snort of pure judgment.
“Horses are settled,” Kit said, stepping closer. “What’s this about the floor lying?”
“Trapdoor.”
“Could just be a cellar.”
“Could just be a monster pantry. Optimism is how people become bones.”
Thorn reached into one of the saddlebags and pulled out two apples. He tossed one to Kit.
“Let’s tend the horses first.”
Kit took the apple and fed it to her mare who accepted hers with considerably more dignity, than Thorn’s bay, as though accepting tribute from lesser beings.
Kit wiped her hand on her cloak and stepped beside Thorn, blade half-drawn, violet eyes fixed on the dark seam.
“I’ve got you,” she murmured. “Pull.”
Thorn gripped the iron ring and hauled.
At first, nothing happened.
He set his feet, muscle straining beneath wet leather. The wood groaned. Mud sucked at the edges. Then, with a wet pop and the sound of something breaking, the trapdoor gave way all at once.
Thorn nearly lost his balance.
Kit’s hand shot out and caught his arm, steadying him as her own boots slid in the mud before finding purchase.
“Easy, muscle,” she said, voice low and warm despite the storm. “You good?”
“Mostly.”
The trapdoor yawned open beneath them, revealing a narrow shaft and stone steps leading down. The smell of old rock and damp earth rose from below. Rainwater trickled over the edges, but the darkness beneath seemed mostly dry.
Thorn looked down.
“Too wet to light a torch. Can you conjure that little witchy light of yours?”
Kit’s mouth curved.
“Witchy light it is.”
She lifted her hand. Violet sparks gathered at her fingertips, then bloomed into a small sphere of light above her palm. It cast the shaft in a soft purple glow.
“After you,” she said. “I’ll keep it bright.”
Thorn descended first.
The stone steps led downward, narrow and slick. Kit followed close behind him, the violet sphere hovering above her palm and throwing long shadows across the rough walls.
The roar of the rain faded with every step until it became a distant hiss above them.
“Probably a storeroom,” Thorn said.
“Storeroom makes sense,” Kit murmured. “Or something older, if we’re unlucky.”
The stairs continued farther than either of them expected.
They did not end in a cellar. Instead, they curved, spiraling down into colder air. The walls grew damper. The stone changed beneath their hands, less like tower masonry and more like the bones of the earth itself.
Kit frowned.
“Deeper than it should be. Watchtowers don’t usually hide cellars this far down.”
“Something’s off?”
“Something’s always off. But yes.”
The stairs rounded one final bend and opened suddenly into a cavern.
Kit’s violet sphere flared brighter.
The light spilled across wet stone and jagged rock, revealing a space far larger than any watchtower cellar had a right to be. Broken barrels lay in splintered heaps across the floor. Collapsed crates sagged in on themselves, their contents long rotted or carried off.
Kit stepped carefully between the debris, boots crunching on damp wood.
“This isn’t man-made,” she said. “The tower’s just sitting on top of something older.”
Thorn scanned the cavern.
“Mostly broken.”
“Comforting.”
“Empty, though.”
Kit’s eyes lifted toward the shadows beyond the wreckage.
“Or it wants us to think so.”
Something glinted near the far edge of a collapsed crate.
Kit saw it first.
“There,” she murmured.
She crossed toward it while Thorn moved to an old brazier standing against the cavern wall. It was cold, but still held coal and char. He struck flint until sparks caught, then coaxed them with dry shavings from a pouch until orange flame bloomed.
The brazier came alive, pushing back the dark.
Kit crouched beside the crate and brushed aside wet splinters. From beneath the rotten wood, she lifted a delicate bracelet with the tip of her dagger.
Across the cavern, Thorn looked up as the brazier brightened.
Kit crossed to him, the bracelet still dangling from her dagger.
“Found something,” she murmured, holding it to the firelight. “Pretty!” The bracelet was a simple design with small polished stones.
Thorn eyed it warily.
“You did check it for magical curses, right?”
Kit traced a quick sigil over it with one dark-nailed finger. Violet sparks danced across its surface, then faded cleanly.
“No curse,” she said. “Old warding magic. Protective, if anything.”
Thorn held out his hand.
“Give it here.”
Kit placed the newly found bracelet in his palm, her fingers lingering for a moment.
Thorn studied the bracelet and gave it a polish with the now damp hem of his shirt, then did something she did not expect.
“Hold out your hand.” He quickly fastened the bracelet around her wrist.
The stones shimmered and turned a violet color and pulsed once, matching the rhythm of her breath.
Her smile softened.
Thorn’s eyes lingered a fraction too long.
The rain had soaked them both through. Kit’s leather clung to her body, dark and fitted in the brazier light, and the amulet glowed at her throat like a captured star.
Kit noticed.
A slow, knowing smile curved her mouth.
“Eyes on the dark, muscle.”
“I was.”
“The cave’s still watching.”
“That too.”
Her gaze shifted beyond the brazier’s glow. The cavern stretched farther than the fire could reach. Its walls vanished into shadow, and the blackness beyond felt too deep for a simple shelter beneath a ruined tower.
“If we’re going to stay here and wait out the rain,” Thorn said, “we need to know what’s out there.”
Kit nodded.
“Then we map it before it maps us.”
She lifted the violet sphere and sent it drifting along the cavern wall. It bobbed and wove into the gloom, casting long shadows across wet stone and broken crates.
Thorn watched intently.
The light moved on.
No sudden stops. No claws lunging out to meet it. No teeth.
Only more stone.
Kit glanced at him.
“Looks clear so far. Want me to push it deeper, or bring it back?”
“Bring it back. I thought I saw something.”
The sphere returned, gliding along the wall until it hovered between them again.
Kit watched his face.
“What did you see?”
Thorn moved forward slowly, no faster than the light. Kit kept beside him, the violet glow spilling over uneven stone as they advanced.
“Slow and steady,” she murmured. “No surprises.”
“Famous last words.”
Ahead, Thorn found another brazier.
This one, too, was cold but ready.
He lit it.
Orange flame bloomed, widening the cavern around them. More broken crates. Another stretch of wall. More dark beyond.
“Two lights now,” Kit said quietly. “The cave’s showing us more of itself.”
Thorn looked back toward the stairwell, then across the opposite wall.
“Wait. I’ve got an idea.”
He returned to where the steps entered the cave and crossed to the shadowed side. Sure enough, another brazier waited there. He lit it, then followed that wall deeper and found another.
Kit’s violet light caught a weapons rack as he passed it.
Rusted blades and spearheads hung from it like forgotten teeth. A few pieces of armor sat nearby, corroded beyond use.
Kit stepped closer, fingers hovering above the ruined steel without touching.
“Armory,” she murmured. “Or what’s left of one. Nothing here worth carrying.”
Thorn kept circling the cavern.
Kit moved along the opposite wall, using sparks of violet magic to coax more braziers to life. Flame after flame caught until the cavern was lined in orange light.
By the time they met near the center, eight braziers burned around them.
The full shape of the place revealed itself: long, narrow, ending in what seemed to be solid stone. Broken barrels and crates littered the floor. Rusted weapons clung to racks. The air smelled of damp, old charcoal, and something metallic underneath.
“End of the line,” Kit said, her voice echoing in the new light. “Nothing but old bones and rust.”
Thorn was not convinced.
He walked the far wall with one hand brushing the damp stone.
Kit mirrored him on the opposite side, violet sphere drifting ahead as she checked for seams, hidden doors, or illusion.
“Cold and solid so far,” she called. “No give. No shimmer.”
Thorn kept going.
His fingers trailed across rock.
Then the stone simply ended.
He stopped sharply.
“Whoa.”
Kit crossed to him, her sphere flaring brighter.
The opening had been hidden not by magic, but by shape. The natural curve of the cavern concealed a narrow passage in the back wall. Even knowing it was there, the eye wanted to slide past it.
Kit crouched beside him, studying the break in the stone.
“Clever,” she murmured. “The cave itself does the hiding. No spell needed. Just stone and shadow doing the work.”
The passage beyond sloped deeper.
Thorn stared into it.
Something about the darkness ahead felt different.
He lowered his voice.
“Something’s not right.”
Kit dimmed the violet sphere until it became a low glow. She rested one hand against the stone, feeling the air shift.
“I feel it too,” she whispered. “The dark’s holding its breath.”
She looked at him.
“We go in, or leave it sleeping?”
Thorn looked back across the cavern. No signs of battle. No bones. No fresh tracks. Only abandoned stores, old weapons, and the strange amulet that had been waiting beneath rotten wood.
“I don’t want to borrow trouble,” he said. “But I won’t be able to rest unless I know we are safe.”
Kit’s mouth curved with grim approval.
“Lead on, muscle. I’ll keep the light sharp.”
He stepped into the narrow passage.
The walls closed in, smooth and damp, sloping downward. Kit followed close behind, violet light hovering near Thorn’s shoulder. After several paces, the passage widened just enough for them to walk side by side.
Thorn brushed his free hand along the wall.
“These walls are too smooth to be natural.”
Kit touched the stone, her expression sharpening.
“Dwarvish work,” she murmured. “Too clean for human hands. Too old for anything recent.”
The sound of water reached them as they continued.
At first, it was only a faint whisper. Then a murmur. Then the steady rush of an underground stream somewhere ahead.
“Water,” Thorn said.
“Underground stream,” Kit replied. “Or something larger. Air’s getting damper.”
She stepped past him, raising the light.
The passage narrowed again, then opened toward a wider chamber.
Thorn’s senses tightened.
He grabbed Kit and yanked her back.
She froze instantly, violet sphere flickering but held steady.
“Wait,” he said.
Kit did not argue.
Thorn pointed toward the wall.
“Look.”
Small dark holes pocked the smooth stone on either side of the passage. Too regular. Too deliberate.
Kit’s eyes narrowed.
“Arrow slits,” she whispered. “Or worse.”
Thorn crouched, studying the floor.
“Bring the light down.”
Kit lowered the sphere until its glow spilled across the stone. At first, the floor looked worn and uneven. Then the pattern emerged: faint grooves and channels running parallel to the walls.
Kit traced one with her fingertip.
Thorn pointed with the tip of his sword.
“There. And there.”
Several shapes in the stone looked too exact to be natural, though they had been disguised to appear worn by time. Raised sections. Clean edges. Surfaces just a little too level.
“Pressure plates,” Kit said.
“Cleverly hidden.”
“Step on one and something wakes up.”
The water murmured somewhere ahead.
The passage waited.
Thorn extended his sword cautiously toward the nearest plate.
Kit held the violet sphere steady, watching as the blade’s tip hovered just above the stone.
Neither of them breathed.
Then Thorn lowered the sword with careful precision.
The blade touched the stone.
For one breath, nothing happened.
Then the wall clicked.
Kit’s hand shot to his arm.
“Back.”
Thorn was already moving. He pulled the sword away and shifted his weight, careful not to step onto the raised plate. A heartbeat later, something snapped inside the wall. A dart hissed through the narrow passage, crossing exactly where his chest would have been if he had stepped forward.
It struck the opposite wall and shattered, spilling a dark smear across the stone.
Kit stared at it.
“Poison.”
“Friendly little hallway.”
“Dwarvish hospitality has declined.”
Thorn crouched again, eyes narrowed, studying the floor. The violet sphere above Kit’s palm drifted lower, washing the stone in cold purple light. What had looked like uneven rock resolved into a pattern: plates, grooves, channels, and disguised seams. Not one trap. Many.
The passage had not been built to stop travelers.
It had been built to teach them fear one mistake at a time.
Kit leaned close, her shoulder brushing his.
“Can you read the path?”
“Maybe.” Thorn pointed with the sword. “Those three stones are raised. This one’s clean around the edge, too clean. The groove runs from there into the wall, probably another dart. That darker patch may be safe.”
“May be?”
“May be is better than screaming.”
“Hard to argue with the poetry of that.”
Thorn glanced at her.
“Send the light ahead. Low. I need shadows.”
Kit opened her fingers. The violet sphere floated forward, sinking until it hovered inches above the floor. It moved slowly, spilling light across each slab. Shadows gathered at the edges of the pressure plates, betraying what the eye alone might have missed.
Thorn watched. Counted. Measured.
Then he rose.
“I go first. Step exactly where I step.”
Kit’s expression sharpened.
“You say that as if I wasn’t already planning to admire your boots.”
“Admire quietly.”
“No promises.”
He stepped forward.
One foot onto a darker stone near the left wall. Then over a narrow groove. Then onto a triangular wedge that looked unsafe but held firm beneath his weight.
Kit followed, placing her boots precisely where his had been. Her cloak brushed the wall. He caught the edge of it before it touched one of the holes.
She froze.
His fingers lingered at her hip, keeping the fabric clear.
“Careful.”
Her voice dropped.
“Trying to keep me alive or just finding excuses?”
“Both can be true.”
A faint smile tugged at her mouth, but neither of them moved quickly.
They crossed the first stretch one breath at a time.
Halfway through, Thorn stopped.
Kit stopped behind him, so close her breath warmed the back of his neck.
“What?”
He lifted one hand.
“Listen.”
At first, she heard only water.
The distant rush of it had grown louder since they entered the hidden passage, steady and low beneath the stone. But beneath that came something else.
A faint scrape.
Then a soft, hollow clack.
Not from behind.
Ahead.
Kit’s violet light dimmed instinctively.
“Something’s moving.”
Thorn’s grip tightened around his sword.
“Or something just woke up.”
The clack came again, followed by a long, slow grinding noise from deeper in the passage. Stone against stone. Old mechanisms remembering their purpose.
Kit whispered a word under her breath and the sphere shifted from violet to a muted blue-white, less bright but sharper at the edges. The walls ahead emerged in fragments: smooth stone, more holes, then a low arch opening into darkness.
Between them and the arch lay the rest of the trapped floor.
And now, somewhere inside the walls, gears were turning.
“We need to move,” Thorn said.
“I dislike when you say that in trapped corridors.”
“I dislike being target practice.”
“Also fair.”
He tested the next stone with the sword. Nothing.
He stepped.
The stone sank.
“Thorn.”
“I know.”
A heavy thunk sounded from the wall.
Kit moved before the dart fired. Her hand flashed up, violet light snapping into a thin shield between Thorn and the slit. Three darts struck it in quick succession, sparks bursting like angry fireflies. The force drove her back half a step.
Her boot landed on the edge of another plate.
The floor clicked.
Thorn twisted, caught her around the waist, and pulled her against him as a blade swept out from the wall at knee height. It sliced through the space where her leg had been and vanished into the opposite stone.
For a moment they stood locked together in the narrow passage, both breathing hard.
Kit looked down at the blade slot.
Then up at him.
“That was rude.”
“The trap or me grabbing you?”
“Yes.”
He huffed a short laugh.
Her smile faded quickly. The shield around her hand flickered. She had spent too much magic healing the boy, and the effort still sat in her bones. Thorn saw it. The slight tremor in her fingers. The tightness around her eyes.
“No more big magic,” he said.
Kit lifted her chin.
“I wasn’t planning to decorate the hallway with my soul.”
“Good.”
“Unless absolutely necessary.”
“Less good.”
The grinding ahead grew louder.
The mechanism was not settling.
It was preparing.
Thorn looked over the remaining stones, then at the arch.
“We run the last ten feet.”
Kit stared at him.
“Through pressure plates.”
“Over them.”
“That distinction is doing a lot of work.”
“There’s a rhythm. Plates trigger, darts fire a breath later. If we’re faster than the mechanism, we clear the arch before it catches up.”
“And if we’re not?”
“Then you can tell me I was wrong while we bleed dramatically.”
Kit’s eyes narrowed, but there was no fear in them. Not exactly. There was calculation. Trust. Annoyance.
The holy trinity of traveling with Thorn.
“Fine,” she said. “On your move.”
He took her hand.
Not her wrist.
Her hand.
The gesture was small, but her fingers closed around his without hesitation.
“Three steps,” Thorn said. “Then jump left. Duck under the arch.”
“Three. Jump left. Duck.”
“Ready?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He moved.
The first plate dropped under his boot.
Click.
Second.
Click.
Third.
Click.
Kit matched him exactly, hand locked in his.
Darts spat from the wall behind them. One sliced past Thorn’s shoulder close enough to tug his cloak. Another flashed near Kit’s cheek, vanishing into the stone with a brittle crack.
“Left!”
They jumped.
A blade swept out from the right wall, missing Thorn’s thigh by a whisper. Kit ducked beneath the arch. Thorn followed, shoulder slamming into stone as he pushed through after her.
They tumbled into the chamber beyond.
Behind them, the corridor erupted.
Darts fired in overlapping volleys. Hidden blades snapped out and withdrew. Something heavy dropped from the ceiling with a brutal crash, sealing part of the passage behind them in a cloud of dust and old stone.
Then silence.
Kit lay half across Thorn, one hand braced on his chest.
For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then she lifted her head.
“I would like to formally object to your plan.”
“Noted.”
“It was terrible.”
“It worked.”
“I hate when those are the same sentence.”
Thorn grinned, but only for a moment.
The chamber around them stole the humor from his face.
It was vast.
Not cavern vast. Built vast.
The walls were smooth, seamless, and black as wet iron. Pillars rose from the floor in two long rows, each carved with angular marks that caught Kit’s light and reflected it in faint violet sparks. The air smelled of water, metal, and old lightning.
At the far end of the chamber, an underground river cut through the stone.
It moved fast and dark, disappearing beneath a low arch on one side and reappearing through another. A narrow bridge crossed it, no more than a strip of carved stone without railings.
Beyond the bridge stood a sealed door.
Round.
Massive.
Dwarvish runes circled its edge.
In the center of the door was a hollow shaped like an amulet.
Kit slowly rose to her feet.
The pendant at Thorn’s throat pulsed once.
Thorn felt the answering pulse from the amulet against his chest.
“Well,” she said softly. “That feels pointed.”
Thorn touched his amulet.
“You said it chose me.”
“I said it felt like it was waiting for you.”
“That’s worse.”
“Yes.”
The river roared beneath the silence.
Kit stepped closer to the door, but Thorn caught her hand before she could go too far.
“Wait.”
She glanced back.
“There may be more traps.”
“There are absolutely more traps.”
“Then why do I feel like you’re going to touch the door anyway?”
“Because I’m curious and difficult.”
She gave him a small smile, but her face had gone pale again. The magic she had used in the corridor had cost her. Thorn moved in front of her without making a show of it.
“Stay behind me.”
Kit’s eyes softened.
“Muscle.”
“Witch.”
“Don’t get noble.”
“Don’t get dead.”
That silenced her for a moment.
Then she nodded.
They approached the bridge together.
The stone beneath Thorn’s first step held firm. The river below moved with unsettling speed, black water flashing silver where Kit’s light touched it. Halfway across, a whisper rose from the current.
Not water.
Voices.
Kit stiffened.
Thorn felt it through her hand.
“What do you hear?” he asked.
Her eyes stayed fixed on the river.
“Names.”
“Whose?”
“Mine.”
The water whispered again.
Kit.
Kit.
Kit.
The sound was soft and intimate, almost tender. It slid beneath the skin.
Thorn tightened his grip.
“Don’t answer it.”
“I wasn’t planning to make friends with the river.”
But her voice had thinned.
The stones in her bracelet began to glow softly. The river answered. The water lifted in small peaks, as if something beneath the surface had turned its face upward.
Then Thorn heard it too.
Not his name.
Hers.
Kit.
Come down.
Rest.
Remember.
Kit’s breathing changed.
Thorn turned sharply.
Her eyes had gone unfocused, violet light swimming in them. One foot shifted toward the edge of the bridge.
“Kit.”
She did not answer.
Her fingers loosened in his.
“Kit.”
The river whispered sweeter.
Thorn pulled her back hard, one arm locking around her waist. She gasped as if surfacing from deep water, her hand flying to his chest.
The amulet and the bracelet flared together.
Violet light burst between them, hot and sudden. The whispering broke apart into a shriek that rushed down the river and vanished beneath the far arch.
Kit sagged against him.
Thorn held her there.
Her breath came fast.
“I heard my mother,” she whispered.
Thorn said nothing at first.
The river kept moving below them, innocent as a knife under silk.
Then he said, “It lies well.”
Kit swallowed.
“Yes.”
He brushed damp hair back from her face.
“You with me?”
Her eyes found his.
“I’m with you.”
“Good.”
She looked toward the sealed door.
“But whatever is behind that door knows things it shouldn’t.”
Thorn followed her gaze.
The round door waited.
The hollow in its center matched his amulets perfectly.
“Let me open it,” he said.
Kit’s mouth tightened.
“No.”
“Thorn.”
She stepped back from him, strength returning in the form of stubbornness.
“You don’t get to decide that alone.”
“I do if the thing eats whoever touches it.”
“And what if it needs the bracelet too in some way? What if the amulet opens the lock and the other keeps it from killing you?”
He hated that she had a point.
She saw it too.
A small, infuriating smile returned.
“There he is. Thinking. Dangerous habit.”
Thorn looked at the door again.
The runes around its edge had begun to glow, one by one as they got closer.
Kit moved beside him.
Together, they stood before the ancient door.
The chamber seemed to lean in.
The river quieted.
Even the air held still.
Kit reached for the bracelet.
Thorn reached for his amulet.
Their hands paused inches from the hollow.
Kit looked at him.
“If this goes badly…”
“It won’t.”
“If it does,” she continued, ignoring him, “I want it recorded that your hallway plan was still terrible.”
Thorn smiled despite himself.
“And I want it recorded that you followed me anyway.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Ready?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Thorn placed the amulet into the hollow, Kit holding his hand.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the door opened its eye.
A vertical line of violet light split the stone from top to bottom. The runes ignited, not around the door, but through it, spreading like veins beneath black skin. The chamber filled with a deep sound, not a hum this time, but a voice too old to belong to anything with a mouth.
The amulet and the bracelet burned bright.
Kit cried out.
Thorn grabbed her hand, but the light had already taken them both.
The river vanished.
The chamber vanished.
The world folded inward.
And when the light released them, they were no longer beneath the tower.
They stood in a hall of impossible size, beneath a ceiling lost in darkness.
Before them stretched a city under the earth.
Dwarvish towers rose from the stone like carved mountains. Bridges crossed chasms lit by blue fire. Far below, wheels turned slowly in black water, though no hands moved them. Forges stood cold. Gates hung open. Streets lay empty.
Not ruined.
Abandoned.
As if an entire people had simply walked away.
Kit’s hand found Thorn’s.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
“What happened here?”
From somewhere deep in the dead city, an answer came.
A horn sounded.
Low.
Ancient.
Awake.
Thorn drew his sword.
Kit lifted her violet light.
Across the nearest bridge, something moved in the dark.
Not bandits.
Not wolves.
Not anything that belonged beneath a watchtower.
Kit exhaled slowly.
“Well,” she said, voice steady despite the fear beneath it. “How do we get back to the horses?”
Thorn looked at her as something moved, “That’s what you choose to focus on?”
“Well someone has to.” Kit murmured as she drew her dagger.