My pulse picked up again, that familiar edge where focus threatened to tipinto overload.
“It’s not lineage,” I murmured, mostly to myself. “Or power. Or sacrifice. Atlanteans didn’t value those the same way.”
Arthur stayed close, his hand warm around mine, grounding without interrupting. He didn’t rush me. He never did.
“They built this to endure collapse,” I said slowly. “A society that expected to fall wouldn’t worship dominance. They’d worship continuity. Systems. Knowledge that survives disaster.”
Hadrian went still behind us.
I felt it before I heard it. The subtle shift of attention. The intake of breath like a memory snapping into place.
“That’s it,” Hadrian said sharply.
Arthur turned. “What?”
Hadrian’s jaw worked, irritation and reluctant admiration warring across his face. “The conduits,” he said. “The texts I dismissed as ceremonial nonsense. They weren’t prayers. They were schematics. Atlanteans believed knowledge only mattered if it could be carried forward.”
He pointed at the altar. “That one.”
Arthur followed the line of his gesture to a small object I’d barely registered. A smooth, disk-like piece etched with layered symbols, worn thin at the edges from handling rather than time.
“Why that?” Arthur asked, not moving yet.
“Because it’s portable,” Hadrian snapped. “Because it’s encoded. Because it’s meant to be passed down, not hoarded.” His eyes flicked to me, sharp. “She’s right. They didn’t value power. They valued survival.”
Arthur didn’t hesitate.
He released my hand just long enough to step forward, pick up the disk, and place it onto the scale beneath the Atlantean statue.
The pan dipped. Paused.
My breath locked in my chest.
Then the scale leveled. The statue remained still.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
The tension drained out of my body all at once, leaving me lightheaded and shaky. Arthur’s hand found mine again, fingers lacing through with quiet certainty. He squeezed once, just enough to remind me we were still here.
Still alive. Still moving forward.
Against all odds, against ancient stone and a cousin with blood on his hands, we were still working together.
25
ARTHUR
The floor gave way without ceremony.
One moment we were standing there, triumphant, breathless, and alive with the rush of having survived something ancient and merciless. The next, the stone beneath my feet vanished and the world dropped out from under us.
We fell.
There was no light. No warning. Just the sensation of weightlessness tearing my stomach upward as the air rushed past. Someone screamed. It might have been Hadrian. It might have been Artemis. It might have been me.
I reached blindly and found her hand.
I pulled her to me hard enough that she collided with my chest, my arms locking around her instinctively, my wings screaming to unfurl even though there was nowhere for them to go.
