The satchel Vesryn had brought sagged heavier with every chamber they cleared. Thirty Starshards gathered, and still they pressed on.
Ten shards ago, the path had begun to spiral. The floor tilted inward as fossilized roots streaked with gold arched overhead and coiled down the walls.
Serenna spoke low as Vesryn walked beside her, unwilling to disturb the hush. “Do you think we should go back?”
Silence stretched so long she thought he hadn’t heard. His globes of illumination whirled ahead, catching on a glint of metal at the next curve.
“One more chamber,” he said at last, distracted, already hurrying forward.
Legs growing heavy, Serenna exhaled a weary sigh and adjusted the Starshard at her throat. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked. Or the second.
His answer never changed, as if time no longer counted in the dark. For him, it was always thenextshard, thenexthidden chamber, spoken with the quiet conviction that some ancient truth waited just one step deeper. That one more discovery might unveil what the Aelfyn had failed to reach.
Serenna wasn’t so easily lured. She didn’t need illusions to see the hollow-eyed corpses. They lived behind her eyes now, their whispers still scraping her skull. None had stirred since that first chamber, yet she felt the surrounding stonewatching.
Vesryn’s voice broke suddenly against the walls. “What do you make of what the Aelfyn said? About the Starpath? Ascension?”
Serenna blinked, suppressing a shiver. He’d asked before, but something in his tone had shifted, less curiosity this time. The bond carried the same edge, telling her that he wasn’t only chasing answers, but brushing against something he already knew.
“Maybe it was a plea,” she said carefully. “Or a warning. Or maybe they were driven mad.”
“It sounded like they were denied something they expected.”
Serenna scoffed, tugging at the gem at her throat. “Power, probably. Or something they thought was theirs byright.”
Vesryn glanced sidelong, the glow catching the jade in his eyes.
Serenna didn’t say anything further. The gleam in his gaze unfocused as the globes of light swept ahead, shadows lengthening across the tunnel. His pace quickened as the path widened before them, chasing a revelation the stone had buried for a reason.
“Unable to ascend,” Vesryn murmured, still fixated. “They tried to flee through the Starpath—whatever that is—but their magic failed.”
“There’s gold laced througheverything,” Serenna said, waving a hand toward the roots and walls. “Maybe that’s when they realized the druids had cursed their magic.”
Vesryn shrugged. “What if they weren’t trying to escape the curse…but reaching for something else entirely?”
Irritation spiked—that he could wander into speculation when the dark seemed to crawl against her skin. Serenna opened her mouth to say it was time to return to Asharyn, but the words withered in her throat.
The tunnel fell away into a hollow descending into shadow, the ceiling vaulting beyond their light. The walls swept outward, a vast chamber unfurling in every direction.
“Do you think there’s anything at the bottom?” Vesryn asked.
Stillness pressed against Serenna’s ears until it seemed the cavern was listening. Her ribs cinched with every breath as she squinted into the void.
“I have a feeling we’re about to find out,” she mumbled.
With a flick of his wrist, Vesryn cast his illumination downward, light catching on gold carved into the chamber. The orbs drifted almost out of sight before striking packed earth far below.
Essence spiraled from his hand, threading through open air where no gold ran. The metal barred escape to the surface, but not movement within its bounds.
A portal tore wide beside them, its twin gaping on the basin’s floor. Serenna lingered at the tunnel’s lip before following him through.
Her boots scraped earth, landing in the cavity. The basin rose in symmetry, walls curved like a ribcage without a heart.
A dragon’s secluded nest, or the remnant of one. That was her first thought, though no shells remained. Still, she felt something massive had once curled here.
Serenna stood motionless, pulse hammering in her ears. No tunnels branched outward. No way forward or back. Only the walls pressing closer.
“I don’t think the Aelfyn made it this far,” she whispered, her voice almost smothered by the weight of earth.
