The thing chained at the center of the chamber shifted.
Its monstrous form rippled, shadows folding inward, jaws dissolving into smooth planes. The chains tightened, groaning, and the shape resolved into something almost human. Tall. Luminous. A body made of flowing water and pale light, features just wrong enough to trip every instinct I had.
It was uncannily beautiful. It was goddamn terrifying.
It turned toward me.
Arthur roared as Hadrian drove him back again, blood spraying across the stone.
I didn’t think.
I ran.
The entity watched me approach, its surface rippling like a disturbed reflection. When I stopped at the edge of the dais, it tilted its head, studying me with eyes that did not blink.
“What do you want?” I demanded, my voice shaking despiteeverything.
Its mouth opened, and the sound came from inside my skull instead of the air.
What do you offer?
My stomach dropped. I fumbled the journal open again, scanning desperately, flipping pages too fast to read properly. Words leapt out at me in fragments. Exchange. Balance. Memory. Cost.
Arthur cried out.
I looked up just in time to see Hadrian slam him into a pillar, Arthur’s wings flaring as he barely kept his footing.
I wouldn’t lose him. I wouldn’t.
Then it clicked.
The Atlanteans had not fed it gold or blood. They hadn’t worshipped it. They had fed it knowledge.
I dropped the journal.
It hit the stone at the foot of the dais with a dull thud.
“I offer this,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “Knowledge forgotten. Systems lost. The truth of what you were used for.”
The entity went still, then its chains rattled softly. The voice slid through me again, intimate and cold.
I shall give you knowledge in exchange for knowledge. Do you accept the deal?
Every alarm in my body screamed. But Arthur’s blood was on the floor. I didn’t have time.
“Yes,” I said, holding out my hand.
Light swallowed me, invading my senses.
Information slammed into my mind in cascading layers. Images. Diagrams. Flowcharts of water and stone, pressure and current. I gasped as the world fractured into systems, every channel suddenly visible, every wall buzzing with purpose.
I didn’t realize I was floating until the ground vanished beneath me.
I fell back hard, breath ripping out of my lungs, vision swimming.
The water from the previous chamber was still pouring in, but now I could see the channels carved into the stone, directing the flood into two massive mechanisms tucked into the corners of the room. Turbines, crude but brilliant, spinning faster as the water surged.
Electricity prickled across my skin, and I tasted salt from the water that splashed onto my face.
