Two dead, seconds apart.
My stomach twisted, but my mind kept moving.
“It was built for Atlanteans.”
Arthur nodded and watched me.
“There has to be a way someone who lived here would understand this without dying,” I continued. “Which means the clues aren’t hidden. They’re obvious. We’re just not looking at them correctly.”
Arthur’s attention snapped to the first section, and mine followed immediately.
Hadrian gave a short, humorless laugh.
“By all means,” he said, gesturing toward the corridor with exaggerated courtesy. “Demonstrate.”
One of his men shifted uneasily, but Hadrian didn’t look at them. His gaze stayed on Arthur and me.
Arthur moved closer to my side. I felt the subtle shift of his attention settle fully on me, the way it always did when I slipped into problem-solving mode. He was letting me process. Or “cook” as the interns would say.
That trust grounded me more than any deep breath could have.
The floor there was a mosaic of tiles, each etched with a different word or symbol. Some were obvious. Some were deceptively simple. I tracked the spacing between them, the way the grout lines aligned just a little too perfectly.
The murals loomed over us, worn by time but still precise. A warlord in distinctive armor, his stance wide and commanding. A towering pile of gold, stacked so high it bent the perspective of the stone. A jagged bolt of lightning striking the ground, splitting itcleanly in two.
“Power,”Arthur murmured in my mind.
Yes,I replied instantly.
I crouched slightly, studying the tiles closer. Several bore symbols that echoed the murals, but only one repeated the same triad. The others mixed concepts. Greed. Violence.
One tile near the edge caught my attention for all the wrong reasons. Its symbol was similar, but the carving was deeper, like it had been etched later.
Before I could stop myself, I picked up a loose shard of broken stone and flicked it across the floor.
The shard hit that tile.
Glass arrows fired from the wall in a precise, lethal grid, slicing the air where a body would have been. They retracted just as quickly, leaving the tile unmarred and the message unmistakable.
I exhaled slowly. “That one’s wrong.”
Arthur nodded once.
He stepped back, gauging the distance. The jump to thepowertile wasn’t small. He met my gaze briefly, something unspoken passing between us, then inhaled and leapt.
His boots struck the tile marked with the power symbol. He bent his knees on impact to keep his balance.
Nothing happened.
My chest loosened, relief rushing through me so fast it made my hands shake.
He turned toward me instinctively, one hand lifting before he seemed to realize there was nothing for me to grab.
“I’ll catch you,” he promised.
My pulse spiked.
The distance wasn’t enormous, but it wasn’t forgiving either. A misstep meant arrows. Or worse. I backed up half a pace, gauging the jump, forcing my legs to stop shaking.
