The moment we crossed fully into the inner corridor of the temple, my brain lit up so hard it was almost painful.
Not in a bad way. In the way it always did when something unfolded in front of me and invited me to understand it.
I had to fight the urge to smile.
Every stone had intention pressed into it. Every surface asked a question and waited eagerly for the wrong answer.
The corridor stretched longer than one would think, tall enough that the ceiling vanished into shadow. The floor was divided into three distinct sections, each one tiled differently, each one patterned with Greek words, symbols, and shapes that were just close enough to familiar to be misleading.
This was a test.
Hadrian stopped a few paces back, clearly unimpressed. “Even a hatchling could see the floor is trapped,” he said. “Fly.”
One of his remaining men shifted instantly, wings snapping open.
“No… this is going to go badly,”I thought toward Arthur at the same time he tensed beside me.
The dragon launched into the air.
The ceiling moved. It was subtle at first, a wrongness more than a sound. My body registered the shift before my brain caught up. Then stone teeth unfolded from above, jagged and brutal, slamming down in a single, unified motion.
Arthur moved at the same time I did.
His arm came around me, pulling me back against his chest as he pivoted us out of the line of impact. The world narrowed to pressure and motion and the solid reality of him in front of me.
The spikes hit.
The sound was immense. Stone meeting stone. Tile shattering. Bone giving way with a final, horrible crack. The impact reverberated through the corridor and up my legs, through my teeth, through everything.
One moment the dragon was there, wings spread, arrogant and alive. The next, there was only ruin.
Arthur’s grip tightened, his stance widening as if he expected the ceiling to come for us next. I could feel the frantic beat of his heart under my palm.
I was shaking.
A suffocating silence rushed in, pressing on my ears, making me aware of every breath I took. Dust drifted down in pale curtains. Broken tile lay scatteredat our feet.
Arthur didn’t let go right away.
He tilted his head slightly, just enough to check on me without drawing attention to it. His voice was low, meant for me alone. “Are you hurt?”
I swallowed. My mouth felt dry, but my mind was still sharp, still running patterns. “No,” I said. “I’m okay.”
He exhaled slowly.
I forced myself to catalog what had happened instead of flinching away from it, because this place seemed to punish panic.
But for that suspended moment, wrapped in Arthur’s arms with stone dust settling around us, all I could think was how fast he’d moved.
To save me.
My pulse hammered, but my mind stayed crystal clear. Fear did that to me sometimes. It stripped away everything unnecessary and left only what mattered.
Hadrian frowned and motioned another forward. This one stayed on the ground and in his human form. He walked across the tiles.
The walls answered immediately.
Glass arrows fired in a precise grid, punching through skin and muscle with surgical efficiency. He barely had time to register what was happening before he collapsed.
