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"No." I shook my head. "Can we step through this curtain of yours?"
"It's not mine, but I think so." Kerina sheathed her knife and moved forward, both hands raised in front of her.
I followed carefully. There had to be a reason the soldiers left. It could be because they hadn't found anything. What had they hoped to find here?
"You know, it's not too late to return to the city," Kerina said. "We don't need to satisfy our curiosity that much."
"When have you ever walked away from anything without seeing it all the way through?" I asked.
"There's a first time for everything," Kerina replied. "We haven't stayed alive this long by being stupid."
"The things we do for the Keeper," I said with a shrug. "We have to keep going. We don't know what we're facing."
"That's what I'm worried about." Kerina kept on walking anyway, step by step. "There's another chamber. I see it through the curtain. And power."
"I see a glow," Latika said. She sounded neither excited or scared. Instead she was cold, focused. Every bit the assassin. As long as no vermin jumped out at her, she wouldn't blink or flinch.
I squinted. The glow was faint, but became increasingly stronger the further we went. After a moment, it took shape.
I frowned. What the fuck?
"It's a box," Kerina said. "A sarcophagus drenched in power."
It was a long, stone sarcophagus, longer than me and maybe twice as wide. The glow of power was coming from around the edges of the lid.
"Or leaking power," I said.
"This is a tomb," Latika said. "There's an altar."
She was right. In the light of the power, stood an altar exactly like the ones in every temple I'd ever stepped foot in.
"This is an odd place for a temple," Kerina said.
"It's a long way to come to worship," I agreed. "Although according to the tales, the Alpha of Jintaro had a summer residence here." I rubbed my chin. "I thought we might be headed there."
"That may be where Viva and the others are," Kerina said. She edged back toward the entrance, hand on her knife.
"Stand guard in case this is a trap," I said.
She responded with a curt nod and turned her back on us.
I stepped closer to the sarcophagus, but stopped short of touching it. "If this isn't the place, then why did she want us here?"
"A distraction?" Latika suggested.
"I sense there's more to it than that," I replied. "This place is buzzing with power. Those soldiers wouldn't have known what to look for." I moved slowly around the sarcophagus, my eyes on the stone carvings on the top and down the sides. "If they entered, they would see nothing but darkness. But we see light."
Here, a carved dragon soared, wings spread, neck outstretched. There, another wound along the ground. Beside that, a cat crouched, almost as large as the sand dragon. Whoever did the carvings had either never seen the creatures, or they decided to be imaginative.
"For what purpose?"
I didn't look up, I sensed Latika's eyes on me.
"Because—" I cocked my head and squinted. "There's something we need to see."
"What sort of something?" she asked.
"I have no idea." I almost completed a full circuit when I saw it. Carved into the stone on one of the long sides was a groove. I was no connoisseur of art, but decoratively speaking, it seemed to serve no purpose. It wasn't a part of any creature. Although now that I really looked, two dragons and a tiger faced toward it.
