The antechamber narrowed into two corridors. One was broad and almost welcoming. The other was narrower andlined with symbols carved so densely the stone looked dark with ink.
Hadrian pointed at the broad corridor. “That way.”
Artemis’s head snapped toward the narrow path.
She leaned toward it like her whole body had become a compass of its own. “No,” she said quietly. “That one.”
Hadrian laughed. “Because it has scribbles on the walls.”
“They’re not scribbles,” she snapped. “They’re instructions.”
Hadrian did not care.
He waved two of his men forward. “Go.”
They hesitated, but they obeyed, walking into the broad corridor. Nothing happened for three steps.
Then the stone beneath them gave way.
A clean seam split down the center of the floor and dropped out from under their feet. They fell without time to scream, arms flailing.
The corridor sealed again as if swallowing them had been the entire purpose of its design.
Artemis closed her eyes once, fast, like she was counting to keep from saying something she would regret.
Hadrian’s face went rigid.
“Fine,” he snapped. “We do it your way.”
I leaned close to Artemis and directed my thoughts to her.“You were right. We need to use your knowledge strategically to get out of this. Even if it means they don't.”
Her thought brushed mine, briefand sharp. “I know.”
“You knew that would happen?”
A nod.
My girl was savage. It shouldn't have made me smile. It also made me ache again, because I did not know how to keep her safe from a temple that judged footsteps and a cousin who judged weakness.
We entered the narrow corridor.
The symbols were everywhere, cut deep and clean. Some were familiar to me in fragments, echoes from old draconic texts, references that had never had context. Others were completely foreign. Atlantean, I realized, not because I could read it, but because it felt like it belonged to a world that had been lost on purpose.
Artemis studied them as we walked, head tilted slightly, lips moving as if she was translating without sound.
“Tell me what you see,” I murmured.
She spoke softly, fast, as if her brain couldn’t slow down enough for my benefit. “It’s procedural. Step patterns. Timing. It’s telling you where to place weight. It’s guiding you through.”
My unease deepened. A temple that guided you through was a temple that decided who deserved to reach the end.
Hadrian walked behind us now, forced into restraint by necessity. I could feel his irritation like heat on my back.
The corridor opened into another chamber.
This one was smaller than the antechamber, but still vast. A mechanism dominated the center, built from interlocking stone rings and inlaid metal that wasn’t tarnished. Water ranbeneath it in a circular channel, and the glow was stronger here, brighter, almost alive.
Hadrian’s remaining men spread out again, more carefully this time.
