“Are you stuck?” I drawled. “Need me tosaveyou?”
“No.” Rock scraped along his shoulder with a dull drag. “This tunnel was built for pocket-sized treasure hunters. Not thieves of a different scale.”
His chest pressed against my back, just for a moment, but it sent a jolt straight down my spine. I bit the inside of my cheek and kept moving.
“You followed me,” I said, my breath shallow.
“I always do,” he murmured.
We crawled in silence a few more paces, the weight of his words clinging to the stone, making the passage feel even tighter.
Finally, the tunnel opened up and dumped us into another chamber. I angled the light along the perimeter of the room, noting the iron sconces lining the wall. The others followed us inside, one by one, and Bowen struck his flint, lighting the torches until firelight illuminated the chamber. It looked vast at first, but the ceiling hung low, and the air shimmered with sticky heat, with nowhere for it to go. I wiped my sleeve across my damp brow and took it all in.
Swaths of Cass’s favorite fungi clung to cracks in the cavern, casting a soft purple glow that undulated like tentacles in the shadowed corners. Twisting vines dotted with ruby-colored blooms draped from chipped pillars and crisscrossed the floor, resembling ropes poised to snag unwary feet.
The room was scattered with giant statues and open sarcophagi. White sand pooled around their bases and spilled across the tiles toward towering ceramic urns. They were as tall as I was and encrusted with glittering jewels, standing at thefour corners of a raised altar.
Ghostly shadows danced along the marble slab, its surface holding a golden chest that glinted in the firelight.
My breath caught in my throat. We’d found the fabled treasure.
Incantus was real, and it was ours.
Chapter 4
“I knew it wasn’ta myth,” Bowen breathed, awe threading through his voice as he moved toward the altar.
We all had our reasons for being here, but Bowen’s was steeped in obsession, driven by the need to leave his mark on history. His father had been a renowned treasure hunter, amassing wealth and relics from some of the farthest kingdoms, delivering artifacts steeped in magic to kings and ancient scrolls to scholars.
But long shadows were the hardest to walk in. And stepping out of them took time and grit.
In a way, Bowen and I weren’t so different. He was chasing his legacy while I was trying to restore my family’s. Both of us were struggling to prove ourselves while standing in the shadow of someone who came before. And after searching for so long, this moment felt like a dream. I was certain I’d wake to find us camped under the stars after another failed mission.
But this wasreal.
A moment of triumph, laced with the bittersweet truth that this life I’d built was ending. It should have felt more freeing. Instead, it was like stepping out of one shadow only to find four familiar ones still attached to my heels.
Forcing a smile, I clapped Reid on the back as he made quicksketches of the treasure room inside his notebook.
“Make sure to draw my good side, Reid. If I'm going to be immortalized, it should be from the left,” I joked, peering over his shoulder at his sketch.
He'd taken to drawing each of us, documenting our journey. My favorite was one of all of us standing at the top of a peak, arms slung over each other's shoulders, the wind whipping through our hair, and the sun beating down on our backs.
Somehow, Reid had managed to capture our spirit.
His pencil flew across the page now as he outlined Cass in front of a pillar. She rubbed a leafy vine between her fingers, then lifted a crimson flower to her nose, her eyes drifting shut on a deep inhale.
Leaving Reid to his drawings, I explored the treasure room. Soft strains of haunting music flowed through the muggy air, and I ground my teeth, determined to find its origin.
I wandered toward a statue. A beastly expression had been carved into the stone as if it stood guard over the treasure, ready to thrash anyone who got too close.
I eyed it warily. Some treasures were protected by sorcery, or worse, a hex. I hadn't come this far just to awaken a vengeful god or suffer a curse. I could see it now:Marin Nichols gave the possessed statue a funny look, and now her soul is trapped forever behind its stony exterior.
Eternal guardians were the worst.
I gave the statue a wide berth and followed the music, stepping over a tangle of vines to examine an open sarcophagus. Instead of holding an ancient skeleton, the tomb was filled with white sand. I sifted my fingers through the fine grains. It reminded me of the sand outside my family home, warm to the touch and so soft, it felt like walkingon a shifting cloud.
Something sparkled, catching my eye. I brushed away the sand to find a relic buried beneath the surface. The air changed, smelling of brine and driftwood, and the music grew louder.
