Hurry up then.
I adored the hint of laughter in her voice.
A narrow corridor split, the left taking me into a disused armory. Cobwebs, broken racks, and half a dozen helmets lay on the floor. Nothing had been hidden among them. Straightening, I peered around the room, spying a key glinting from inside a jagged crack in the wall, barely visible. Only its curved edge caught the dim light.
I swept the cobwebs aside and crouched in front of the crack, slipping my fingers inside. Cold stone bit the tips. Runes blazed to life above the crack, and the wall turned a murky green.
Pain smacked through my skull, and the feeling of everything being sucked from deep inside me made me want to jerk away. The wall was draining me, pulling energy from behind my sternum, siphoning off my power.
I curled my fingers and gathered moisture from around me, enough to form a line of tension, and funneled it toward the runes. When the icy liquid hit, the stone cracked, spidering outward. The spell shattered, and the sucking sensation went away. I pressed harder with the ice, finding a weakness in the rune’s loop, and broke it.
Theglow died.
I tested the key. Cold. Of course.
Footsteps thudded from somewhere nearby. A woman shouted, then burst into shrill laughter.
Rising, I stepped back into the corridor and took the other corridor. The first door on the right was cracked open. I pushed it inward with two fingers, the hinges groaning as it swept wide.
This chamber was round, the ceiling barely a handspan above my head. Something about the proportions felt off, like the space had shrunk inward after it was built. No windows. The only light came from luminous gems in the mortar.
A skeleton lay on a bunk mounted to the back wall, its spine curved in a painful arc, and a key glinted inside the ribcage, beneath the sternum. Bronze or maybe brass. It looked reachable, but the magic in this room hissed warnings.
The walls had been painted dark blue, an odd choice for a dungeon. A mural had been painted on the wall to my right, the image blurred by water damage and grime. Someone had painted a creature there, part bird, part serpent, its wings spread wide, its long neck twisted to bite its own tail. Three wounds pierced its form: neck, in the ribcage area behind the wing, and the lower spine. Painted blood still dripped from each strike.
Shrugging the image off, I studied the skeleton more carefully. Its bones appeared old but not brittle, and someone had reinforced the vertebrae with wire. They'd turned this corpse into a trap.
Moving closer, I noticed etchings carved into the ribs. Symbols I didn't recognize, but their placement corresponded to the mural's wounds. The neck marking aligned with the creature's first injury. The left ribs matched the wing strike. The lower spine held the third symbol.
Clever. The painting wasn't just decoration, it was instruction.
A puzzle, then. Touch the wrong spot and face theconsequences, I assumed. Touch them in sequence, and perhaps the prize would be mine.
I reached toward the neck area first, hesitating. What if I was wrong? What if this was exactly what the trap wanted me to think?
You're well?I asked Reyla.
Couldn't be better. Did you find anything?
Working on it.
Taking a breath, I pressed the first point. The bone vibrated under my finger, and the skull settled back against the dingy pillow. The corridor's lights flickered and steadied. Good or bad? Hard to tell.
Next, I tapped the second point, the left ribs on this body. I applied pressure and heard a satisfying click as one rib separated, unlocking part of the cage.
Now for the third. The mural showed the lower spine, but which vertebra exactly? I counted down from the base. Fourth looked right, but something nagged at me. The angle was wrong, the proportion off.
I pressed the fourth vertebra.
The skeleton's arms shot upward like blades, barely missing my head. Electricity raced up my arm, and pain shot out my neck, ribs, and lower spine, in the exact locations as the wounds on the wall.
I stumbled backward, calling air into a defensive whirlwind as the corpse shuddered and reset. This time, when I checked my body, I found small puncture marks in my skin. Releasing a low growl, I quickly healed them.
The memory of Prager's attack in the mirror and her sly smile promising exactly this kind of suffering snarled through me. She'd known. Somehow, she'd known I'd end up here, facing a trap designed to weaken me.
The flesh wounds weren’t just a deterrent. They were a warning. I suspected each mistake would gouge “her” blades deeper.
Lore?Wildfire couldn’t hold back the concern in her voice.Are you alright? I felt pain…
