“The air, Declan.” The words tumble out. “It’s cold.”
I scramble off him, legs shaky, pulse still galloping.
We’re not in a silk tent like the others that make up this firelit kingdom. We’re inside four stone walls and the shattered remains of a door—not a flap of fabric but a wooden door.
“It’s cold.” I rub warmth into my skin, breath fogging faintly in the quiet, subterranean chill.
Dust hangs in the air, turning to gold flecks in the soft flicker of torchlight. Shelves line the walls, bowing beneath the weight of ancient scrolls and brittle, yellowed pages. A heavy trunk squats in the center of the room, brass edges scorched, leather straps curled with age. Next to it, a narrow desk lists under documents and wax-sealed envelopes.
Declan brushes sand from his pants, his narrowed gaze sweeping the room like he’s scanning for other exits. Or threats. “What is this place?”
I turn in a slow circle, attention catching on thesoot-streaked torches smoldering in their brackets, strange runes carved into the stone walls, piles of parchment scattered across the floor as if someone left in a hurry. This doesn’t feel random. It’s a place someone wanted hidden.
“Fortune wasn’t leading me out there,” I say slowly, tasting the truth of it as I speak. “She was leading me here.”
Pressure tightens beneath my sternum, a string pulled taut. A quiet, insistent tug.
I drift forward, feet carrying me toward the trunk like it’s magnetized and I’m nothing but a scatter of iron filings. The closer I get, the stronger the pull—the knowing in my bones that I’m meant to be here. Fortune didn’t abandon me to the sand. She pointed me toward this. Toward answers.
“There’s a lot in here,” Declan says behind me. “What is it she wants you find?”
I hear him, but it’s distant, muffled, like his voice is coming from underwater. The rest of the room blurs at the edges as I wade through it to the trunk.
And then I hear it.
No, not hear.Feel.
The faintest tick of unseen gears. A mechanical beat that rises from the earth.
Click.
Click.
Click.
A slow, certain progression.
The wheel is turning.
Declan is talking again. I think he’s saying my name, but the world is thick and syrupy around me. My body moves without my direction, drawn forward in a steady,inevitable glide. Spellbound, I kneel in front of it.
The trunk is massive, its dark wood swollen and warped with age, banded in copper that glows dully in the dim light. Intricate flame etchings curl along the edges. At the center of the lid, a copper wheel is mounted and quartered, each wedge branded with an elemental rune.
“Amanda.” Declan’s voice cracks through the spell like a whip.
I blink, shoulders jerking, hands frozen above the trunk. Awareness slams back into me all at once. My vision spins before it steadies, the pull receding just enough to let me fully come to inside my body.
Declan crouches beside me, worry furrowing his brow. “Where did you go? I was talking to you, and it was like you couldn’t even hear me.”
I shake my head and rub my temples. “I don’t know. This trunk—”
“You want to go back to the tent? See the healer?”
A hollow laugh breaks out of me. “A plank of burnt wood isn’t going to fix whatever’s going on here. I need to open it.”
His jaw ticks. “Then take a second. Let me try first.”
He curls his fingers under the edge of the lid, muscles in his forearms flexing, shoulders braced. “I have a feeling this is going to get weirder.”
