“We need to take a minute to look around. There might be clues around here.” Willem sifts through the bones, tattered fabric, and broken pieces of the artifacts.
Briar looks up at the ceiling and frowns. “Do you see them?”
“See what?” I ask, walking to her side and looking up.
“The markings. There are some on the ceiling. Nothing that can help us open the door, but I think they tell a story,” she answers. “Qenta. She’s the one who did all of this, but she isn’t the one who created the doors. These inscriptions…”
I nod. “They’re transcripts, actually. A list of things she did to protect Drogaem’s resting place.”
“Exactly,” Briar answers. “Their magic signature is different than what I felt on the door. And they never mention the doors at all. It’s so strange they would put the transcripts to their spells in the same place they’re trying to protect.”
“I’m impressed.” My praise causes Briar to look away with a charming blush upon her cheeks. I follow her closer to the door. “What do you see? What’s different between this door and the last one? What are their similarities?”
She chews her lip and begins to inspect the runes. “The dark feeling...the foreboding is getting stronger. I can barely think it’s so loud.”
I shake my head, pointing ahead. “Don’t try to read the runes yet. Look at the appearance of the door.”
Briar nods and looks at the cracks and signs of age.
While the first door was carved out of stone, this one is bone. I feel the life that once flourished within the creature who made the sacrifice. It throbs beneath my palm, churning as though the soul was still trapped inside, but it isn’t. There is nothing but death here beyond the three of us. A cold draft flows across my feet.
I kneel down to feel the air. As a creature of darkness and shadow, of death and the afterlife, it takes a lot to make me shiver, and yet I do. The foreboding feeling within me is stagnant and I hope it doesn’t transfer to her, she is feeling enough in these auspicious moments. Briar follows my lead, eager to learn what other secrets are hidden away in the tomb. She gasps when the air touches her fingers and looks up at me. We begin to trace the runes with our hands, feeling the magic within them, trying to decipher their meaning.
“Lilies?” I ask.
Briar nods.
She traces the symbol with the tip of her finger. “They seem feminine, don’t they?”
I narrow my eyes looking up. “And if the runes on the ceiling are in Qenta’s, these were put here by someone as strong as her if not more powerful.”
The etchings are clean lines, not rough markings stabbed into the center. These door runes and the ones before show signs of care.
Briar shivers under her own realizations. “It’s not really a defense, is it? It's like the doors are keeping something in instead of keeping us out.”
Willem shakes his head. “I knew we shouldn’t have come here. As soon as we started this journey, something has been warning us away from this place.”
I glare up at Willem, displeased with his lack of courage. “You and I have been tracking the crown for years, searching through every piece of lore we could find in hopes of getting Archech. We’re in this together, Willem.”
He points all around him. “That was before I started seeing signs that someone doesn’t want us here.”
“Lilies grown beneath the first moon of…” Briar trails off, brow furrowed in concentration. I place my hand over hers, feeling the way the runes seem to reach out to her. I nod encouragingly, allowing her to steady herself in the shadows of my power. She breathes deeply through her nose and continues. “Beneath the first full moon of winter. A sliver of Usulyni from...water? No. That’s not right.”
I can feel her frustration. “Slowly, Briar. Breathe. Come on. You can do it. Ethereal pool. What about the lilies and the blade?”
She sounds hopeful. “I-it’s a ritual. It reads like instructions to something.”
“Instructions for what?” I ask calmly.
“Lilies grown beneath the first moon of Winter. A sliver of Usulyni stone drown in the ethereal pool. Blood of...I can’t, Kane. It hurts.” She trembles and I pull her hand away.
Briar curls against my chest. I feel the heat of her breath seeping through my shirt and run my fingers through her untamed waves. She nods after a moment and I release her. The bashful little smile on her lips is almost too much to resist, but I must. If not for myself, I must resist for her.
“You’re almost there. I can feel it.”
Briar closes her eyes and exhales slowly. When her eyes open, they glow blue for a moment. I say nothing, but the reaction is strange indeed. She returns her hand to the door and I see the runes ripple. I snatch her hand away and replace it with my own, frowning curiously at the way they shift for me, but differently. It’s as if the runes are spelled to keep those who don’t truly understand the ritual out. It has to be a believer, a worshiper of Lux or Lux herself.
“What is it?” she inquires. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No. Come here.” I lay her hand at the center of the door and step away. Briar stays put but she frowns at the lack of my presence. “Concentrate.”
She closes her eyes again and when she opens them, the runes move. Actually move. They form a circle around her hand. Briar jumps away with
