Thane walks past me and throws up several orbs of light, one for each walkable tunnel. The orbs float through, highlighting the walls until their light fades. Only one orb returns. The rest, I assume, are lost in darkness.
“That way,” Thane says as the orb melts into his palm again. He doesn’t wait for us to catch up as he advances. Water drips on my shoulder as I follow his lead, ducking and weaving cobwebs.
This particular tunnel leads to a tower where the roof is completely gone and left in shambles. What’s stored inside, however, is enough to fill me with joy and relief.
The room is packed with wooden trunks filled to the brim with gold coins, goblets, crystals, and pearls.
“Holy Orvena,” Algar says in awe.
“Wow. The sorcerer wasn’t lying,” Rynthea murmurs.
Without another word, she and Algar dash ahead, ripping their rucksacks off their backs and dropping to their knees in front of one of the trunks to shovel treasure into them.
I smile as I watch them fill their rucksacks, then laugh when Algar says, “We should just take one of the trunks with us, right? No way we’re leaving so much of this behind!”
“It’d only slow us down,” Rynthea tells him. “Fill your bag with as much as you can.” She looks at me. “Zaira, should I fill yours? I’ll carry it for you if it gets too heavy.”
“Uh, sure. Yeah.” I can do with some coin myself once Analla and I are stable.
I remove my rucksack and hand it over to her. Once she takes it, I search for Thane. He’s standing near the mouth of the room with expressionless eyes, observing Rynthea and Algar as they laugh and send praises to Orvena.
When his eyes turn up to meet mine, he says, “Come with me.”
He ducks out before I can ask where we’re going. When I make it back to the main area, I see him walking toward another tunnel across the way that’s already lit with one of his orbs.
“Wait—Thane.” I walk as quickly as I can, but my thigh is still a little tender. He pauses, waiting for me to catch up. Then he presses on, and for some reason, my heart is beating twice as fast. Not from running or hurrying, but because his mood has changed entirely.
He’s nervous. Thane doesn’t get nervous.
Thane follows his orb of light around another corner. When it stops, it hovers in front of a solid wall. He comes to a halt and faces it, running the pads of his fingers along a vertical crack. His fingers light up as he presses down, and then the wall splits open.
The walls groan as they part, revealing a room that is much smaller than the one where the treasure is stored. Against the wall are two wooden chairs, and on one of them sits acorpsewith tattered beige robes hanging off its bones.
Chapter 54
“We’ll need this.” Thane breaks off one of the corpse’s fingers.
“Are the stones here?” I ask as he steps a few paces to the right.
His eyes narrow as he scans the space, thinking. “Right here,” he murmurs, making his way to the middle of the room.
I stand completely still, hardly able to breathe as he uses the finger to press a barely visible indent in the stone floor. As he does, the floor glows gold, and the bone splinters into hundreds of shards and begins to levitate.
I stare at them in awe.
Thane takes a leap back as a small section in the floor opens up and an ivory pedestal elevates from it. Floating above it is a brown, leather-bound book, worn around the edges with foreign gold runes etched into the front and back cover. A green, shimmering aura surrounds it like a cushion, highlighting its weathered pages.
Thane blows out a satisfied breath. I’ve never seen his eyes glitter like that—the same way Rynthea’s and Algar’s did over the treasure.
“Is that Azidel’s tome?” I ask, inching closer.
Thane’s head lifts to look at me. The bright amber in his irises seems to glow. “It is.”
My heart thunders in my chest as I look him up and down. He’s smiling underneath his mask—not at me, but at the book.
A flood of emotions begins to bud in the pit of my stomach.
I hate that one comes so close to fear. I want to get the tome for him, but there are so many unknowns. What if it all goes wrong? What if the reason no one could get the book before is because they died trying?
