I’d always feared that when my people needed strength, all I would have to offer was ideas and thought. And that had come true here today.
Hadrian laughed. “Playing is such an inelegant word.”
“What do you want?” I demanded. “My position? My title? Take it. Just let her go.”
He shook his head, still smiling. “It’s not that simple, cousin.”
He turned toward the water, picking up the compass where it had fallen in the chaos. He began to chant ancient, draconic words layered with magic that made the air vibrate. The syllables grew louder, more insistent, until the ground beneath our feet began to tremble.
He hurled the compass into the sea.
Water churned violently, waves crashing inward as if pulled by an unseen hand. The surface split, foam and spray tearing apart as the sea drew back from itself.
Stone emerged.
A carved staircase rose from the depths, descending straight into the earth beneath the island. The air hummed with power. With history. With something that had been waiting a very long time to be found.
Hadrian turned back to me, eyes bright, delighted.
“Come along,” he said lightly, gesturing toward the opening abyss. “You’re not going to want to miss this.”
22
ARTHUR
The staircase should not have existed.
It descended far deeper than the island had any right to allow, carved from pale stone that caught the torchlight and bent it into gold. Each step was worn smooth by age—not erosion, but deliberate use. The walls were etched with symbols that predated any draconic script I knew, lines flowing into one another like a language that had never needed to be spoken aloud.
This was Atlantis.
We were marched downward, flanked by Hadrian’s men, the weight of the ocean pressing in on every side. I kept my pace measured, my head lowered just enough to appear compliant while my mind worked furiously through possible escape routes and weak point. But they were taking us under the godforsaken earth, so my options were becoming quite limited.
Artemis walked beside me, wrists bound, jaw set in that way I was beginning to recognize. She was furious, but focused.
“I’m sorry,”I sent to her without meaning to, the thought slipping down the bond like a confession. We hadn’t tried communicating like this while I was in my human form yet, so I wasn’t surprised that she was taken aback by my presence in her mind.
“Don’t be sorry. Just let me see.”The look on her face was pure joy.
The stairs opened suddenly into space.
The air changed, becoming warmer and charged with magic. Then the ceiling rose away from us and the courtyard revealed itself in a sweep of light and stone that stole the breath from my lungs.
The temple stood at the center like a crown.
Massive columns ringed an open square, each carved with scenes of dragons, humans, and a third form, tall and luminous, hands raised as if shaping the world itself. Water flowed through channels cut into the stone floor, glowing faintly, fed from some unseen source below. The sky above was not the sky at all but a vast dome of crystal and magic that held the sea at bay, light filtering through in rippling patterns like we stood beneath the surface of a living jewel.
This was no sanctuary.
This was a machine.
My ancestor had kept this hidden.
The knowledge struck hard. Not sealed away by time or catastrophe, but deliberately buried.
Why?
My gaze drifted to Artemis.
