Terran smiled.
It wasn’t mocking, or jesting, or like any other of the smiles he’d given me thus far. This one was genuine and encouraging. The kind of smile a friend would give you.
Not one of an enemy.
As before, I cleared my mind and performed the rite, praying to Zephra it would work at this distance. But just as before, the guard slumped to the floor.
It wasn’t until we stepped over him—Terran grabbing a wall torch since he’d abandoned his other one in the throne room—and pushed in what looked exactly like a wall beyond where the guard stood, another entranceway revealed, that either of us spoke.
“Well done,” he said, holding the light to the side of us.
“Thank you.”
So many other words went unspoken as he turned and said, “The stone staircase is long and narrow. Watch where you step. I will do my best to light the way.”
He’d not been jesting.
We walked down, and down, and down, the air becoming cooler and damper, as we descended. If either of the guards woke… if any above were somehow alerted to our presence… there would be nowhere to escape. Terran and I would be well and properly caught.
“If we are somehow discovered, what will you say?” I asked, finally too curious not to know his plan. I’d executed my part, and the rest depended on him. Had I been foolish to lay my life at the feet of a Gyorian prince? That there had been little choice didn’t make my racing heart slow, despite the methods I’d been taught to slow it in situations such as these.
Slow breath in, Lyra. Hold it, remind yourself there is no past, no future, and that at present, you are alive and breathing, and another slow breath out.
“That you forced my hand.”
I froze. Terran turned up to me, smiling once again.
“Or that I was gathering intelligence. Technically true.” He shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Humor. From Terran of Gyoria.
Fascinating.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, though had likely been just minutes, we arrived at the bottom. The stone-carved chamber was small, and bare, except for a single stone chest lying on a stone pillar.
“You Gyorians do love your stone.”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “It endures.”
The chest was carved from obsidian-veined granite, its surface etched with ancient runes that shimmered faintly in the torchlight, which he handed to me.
Without pause, Terran stepped forward and pressed his palm to the lid. With a low, grinding sound, the runes pulsed once… and then it opened.
I rushed forward and peered inside.
17
TERRAN
My father’s crown.
Though Lyra gasped, I wasn’t surprised to find it inside. So many secrets, and yet my father was predictable in many ways as well.
Forged from a fusion of obsidian and silver, the Stone of Mor’Vallis at its center shimmered with a dark iridescence, shifting in hue from midnight to, when used, a deep crimson. Along the band, ancient runes pulsed faintly even now with aetheric energy, a reminder of the pact once shared between Gyorians and the elemental forces of the land.
“I’ve seen it many times on his head. But here, like this…”
I understood what Lyra meant. There was something dark, almost sinister, about it. Perhaps knowing what he’d used the Stone to do?
