She blinked.What in the blazes was a stim tab?“I already took one,” she lied.
He nodded, satisfied, and stepped toward the descending ramp that led to the sealed chamber, scanner in hand. As they walked, the temple lights overhead flickered once then settled. The silence felt deeper down here. Heavier. More aware.
“Hmm,” Gunner started. “Same energy patterns as yesterday. No temperature fluctuations, no seismic shifts. It’s like the thing’s asleep.” He cast a look over his shoulder and winked. “But you’re my wild card.”
A chill shot down her spine. What she wouldn’t give to blend into the background again. To return to the life where she’d been just a doctor’s apprentice, and no one even seemed to know she existed.
When they reached the entrance to the hidden chamber, Gunner stopped and swung his toolkit onto the ground with a grunt. The stone door in front of them loomed—massive, smooth, and almost deceptively simple. Its surface was the same red stone as the mountain but darker around the edges, as if heat had once licked the seams.
Gunner tapped the center of it. “Still gives no readings. Which means either it’s completely dead, or so alive that it’s hiding from us.”
Gemma stepped closer. The itch in her hands crawled to her wrists, pulsing faintly in time with her heartbeat. A vibration gathered in her chest.
“I think,” she said slowly, “it’s . . . waiting.”
One of Gunner’s eyebrows lifted. “You say that with unsettling confidence.”
She didn’t answer. She pressed her palm against the stone. It was cold at first, then a hint of warmth tickled her fingers.
Gemma gasped and staggered back, clutching her hand when a zap of pain lashed up her arm.
“Whoa, what happened?” Gunner asked.
“I’m not sure.” Gemma narrowed her gaze at the door.You know what to do, a prickle said in the back of her mind. Forcing the door open was out of the question, but commanding it . . .
She pulled on that unwelcome—but familiar—thread of power she’d felt during the battle in Zion. Maybe she could use it just this once without succumbing to it.
Yes, give in just a little, the voice in the back of her mind spoke, foreign yet familiar. Gemma should be afraid of it, but she strangely wasn’t. It was like a familiar friend, drawing her in, daring her to stroke the part of her DNA that had become alien.
“Gemma?” Gunner said. “Is this normal?” He waved a circle around his eyes.
Hers must’ve turned purple. But she was too absorbed in the prickling sensation running through her body, from her toes to the top of her head, to answer Gunner’s question.
She held out her hand, palm toward the door. “Oporp.”
A thin, violet glow traced along the seams.
Gunner sucked in a breath. “Oh, stars. You knew the language. And the door . . .”
The glow widened, branching outward like cracks in glass. But instead of shattering, the lines pulsed then curved in elegant, unfamiliar patterns, turning one door into two.
The doors rumbled. Dust spilled from the seams, and glyphs spilled down the walls of the corridor in shades of glowing, purple light. Gemma’s heart thudded loudly in her chest.
Next to her, Gunner whispered, “That’s the same Revarian script I’ve seen throughout this entire temple.”
The door stopped grumbling, and the glow dimmed but did not vanish.
Gemma lowered her hand, her breathing shallow. Her fingers trembled. The door had actually obeyed. And she’d spoken in the same dialect from her nightmares. But how?
A tsunami of desolation slammed into her. Her lungs seized; her head swam; her legs shook. She pressed a fist to her chest as she tumbled to the floor.
Beads of sweat trailed down her temples and her spine. She tugged on the scarf around her neck, ripping it off as she gasped for breath.
Gunner crouched in front of her. “Deep breaths. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.”
But the air wouldn’t come, no matter how hard she tried to slow her breathing.
The world around her began to spin. Darkness formed at the edges of her vision.
