Dust still drifted through the broken chamber in slow, choking veils. Pebbles slipped from the fresh wall of stone and clicked down the rubble before settling into silence. Somewhere beyond it, Thorn’s voice faded into the dark, followed by Vasha’s lighter steps, Rendall’s curses and Darron’s quieter tread.

For a little while, nobody on Suraia’s side moved. Then even the distant sounds were gone.

Suraia stood with one hand against the cold rock, listening long after there was nothing left to hear. Her elbow, hip and shoulder still hurt from the fall. The stone beneath her palm felt too solid to overcome. Thorn and Vasha were on the other side. Only moments ago, the large elf had been close enough to try to step between her and the mummy before Elira stopped him.

Now there was only rock.

Kaelen paced behind the redheaded woman with one hand pressed against the wrist the mummy had grabbed. Her face was pale beneath the dust, but her fear had sharpened into anger. Malrik crouched beside his fallen lantern and wiped soot from the glass with shaking fingers. Garrick stood several paces away, staring into the darker passage beyond the chamber instead of at the rubble.

He turned towards the others. “Right, let’s get goin,” the dwarf said.

Suraia’s stomach tightened. “You said we would wait…” she murmured.

Kaelen gave a thin, humourless laugh. “We have waited,” she said.

“It has barely been two minutes,” Suraia said softly.

“Long two minutes,” Kaelen muttered.

Garrick finally looked at the human woman. Lantern light caught in his eyes, and whatever patience he’d possessed was gone. “We’re not sittin here until the mountain decides to drop the rest of itself on our heads,” he said.

“Thorn said he would find a way around,” Suraia replied, her voice uncertain.

“Aye,” Garrick said. “And if he does, he can catch up.”

Her fingers curled against the stone. “But he told us to stay,” she said.

“He’s not here,” the dwarf replied.

Malrik looked up from his lantern, his gaze moving from Garrick to Suraia and then the passage. “The magic’s still present,” he said.

Garrick’s attention snapped towards him. “Where?” he asked.

“That is the difficulty,” the halfling said as he stood. Excitement crept around the edges of his concentration. “I can feel it. Old. Concentrated. Deeper, perhaps. But not clearly. Not like a path.”

Garrick looked towards Suraia. She stepped back before he spoke.

“No,” she whispered.

Kaelen narrowed her eyes. “No?” she asked.

“I don’t want to follow it,” the curly redhead answered.

“Nobody asked what you wanted,” the half-elven woman replied.

“She felt it before,” Garrick said as though Suraia wasn’t there. “Before the corpse grabbed her. And now?”

Malrik leaned closer, studying her with sudden fascination. “You can still feel it, can’t you?” he murmured.

Suraia went still.

Kaelen gave a sharp little smile. “Well. That is… good to know,” she said.

The human woman lifted both hands. “I’m not doing anything,” she said.

“Sure, sure,” Garrick replied. “But it seems that mummy had a thing for you and you alone. It showed us you are useful.”

Useful.

“Please. You… you said we… we would wait for Thorn,” Suraia said.

Garrick stepped closer. He was shorter than her, but broad enough that his certainty filled the narrow space. “Listen close, lass. Your large elf is finding his way around. Good. Let him. Meanwhile, we still have a mage, a healer, and a trail of old magic leading somewhere. We find what this place was hiding, then we all leave richer.”

“I don’t know where it leads,” Suraia replied desperately.

“But you feel it,” the dwarf said.

She didn’t answer quickly enough.

Garrick’s mouth curved. “That’ll do,” he said before turning towards the passage. “Move.”

Suraia remained beside the rubble in one final attempt at defiance.

Kaelen seized her arm. Her fingers dug painfully through the fabric as she dragged Suraia away from the wall. “Come on,” she snapped. “Don’t start trembling now.”

“No… please,” Suraia whispered.

Kaelen leaned close enough for her breath to touch the human woman’s cheek. “My brother is on the other side of that wall, and I’m not standing here useless because you’re scared of a little magic.”

“It’s not… You don’t know...” Suraia whimpered.

The half-elf released her with a shove. “Move, stop wasting my time,” she ordered.

Kaelen stayed behind Suraia, close enough to grab her again if she slowed. Garrick lifted his lantern and followed the two women down the passage. Malrik hurried after them with his own light, too eager and too frightened at once as he searched for magic he couldn’t properly trace.

The curly redhead looked back at the fallen stone. Thorn would come. Vasha would come. They had promised. She held on to that thought as she stepped deeper into the temple.

The magical pull strengthened almost immediately. It didn’t drag like a rope. It was softer and more intimate, as though the darkness ahead whispered without words and knew she would understand if she stopped resisting. Her skin prickled while Garrick’s lantern seemed too yellow and too small against what waited beyond it.

“What way?” Garrick asked.

Suraia stopped where one tunnel sloped downwards and another turned sharply left. She didn’t want to know, but her gaze moved left before she could stop it.

Garrick noticed. “Left,” he said.

“I didn’t…” the human woman mumbled.

“You did,” the dwarf said and pushed her forwards.

The passage narrowed. Its walls were rougher, carved for purpose rather than reverence. Water dripped from above into shallow hollows beneath their feet, and every sound returned strangely: Garrick’s boots ahead, Malrik’s muttering and Kaelen’s breath behind her.

Suraia held her arms close. What if they made her use magic?

Garrick had seen her heal. Kaelen had seen the barrier in the forest. Thorn and Vasha had always been nearby then, and perhaps that was why no one had pressed or spoken the word which had followed her for so much of her life.

Heretic.

What if Garrick decided her magic was another tool? What if Malrik wanted to study her as he studied the temple? What if Kaelen called her unnatural? The tunnel blurred, and Suraia stumbled.

Kaelen caught the back of her cloak and hauled her upright. “Keep moving,” she said.

“I...” Suraia began.

“Faster,” Kaelen growled. “I want to get out of here sooner rather then later.”

Malrik glanced back. “She may need a moment. Magical resonance can be disorienting,” he said.

“Does she look dead?” Garrick asked.

The halfling shook his head.

“Then she can walk,” the dwarf grumbled.

Malrik pressed his lips together but didn’t argue. He wasn’t kind. He was curious enough to want her intact, and that wasn’t the same thing.

The pull returned more strongly. Suraia slowed at another bend and looked towards a dark archway half-hidden behind a fallen slab.

“There,” Malrik said suddenly, watching her instead of the arch. “You felt something.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to,” she said.

Garrick stepped close. “Lass,” he said.

Suraia flinched.

“There is something in this place worth all this blood. I know there is. Men do not die guarding empty stone. Mummies do not wake for cracked pots and old dust. Whatever it was protecting, you will lead us to it,” the dwarf said, his voice rough with greed dressed as reason.

“I don’t think it was protecting treasure,” Suraia mumbled.

Garrick’s face hardened. “You don’t need to think,” he said. “You need to walk.”

Kaelen gave a short laugh. “Careful, Garrick. She might start crying,” the half elf said.

Heat rose into Suraia’s cheeks. She curled her fingers into her sleeves and stepped through the archway because standing still had become worse. The passage beyond sloped deeper, and the rubble chamber disappeared from sight behind them.

On the other side of the collapse, Vasha found the way around sooner than she had expected. It should have been a relief. It wasn’t.

The narrow passage forced Thorn to turn his shoulders in places. Damp, bare rock closed around him and offered neither root nor soil beneath his hand. The Oakhai felt the same emptiness wherever she reached for anything living. There was only stone and mountain.

Thorn hated it, not from fear but from frustration and the sharp awareness that part of himself had been cut away.

The archer moved ahead with her bow in hand and her ears angled towards every sound. Her white tail stayed low and still. She had barely spoken since the split, but the tension showed in every line of her body.

Behind Thorn, Rendall was unravelling.

“She had better still be there,” the half-elf snapped for the third time. “If that dwarf left her—”

“We will find them faster if you stop wasting breath,” the Ee’dornil said.

Rendall clenched his jaw.

Darron walked last, keeping as much distance from Vasha as the passage allowed. Since Kaelen’s cruel question and Vasha’s answer, he had left a space between them which hadn’t been there before. It was small enough that someone careless might have missed it.

Thorn noticed. So did the woman with the fox ears, although she didn’t look back.

The tunnel opened into familiar dust. Rendall raised his lantern as they emerged on the far side of the rockfall, but the chamber where the others should have been waiting was empty.

Suraia was gone. So were Garrick, Kaelen and Malrik.

Rendall stared for one heartbeat before exploding. “That bastard,” he shouted, then continued with a stream of colourful curses.

Vasha cursed under her breath, soft and vicious.

Thorn crossed the chamber in three strides and crouched where Suraia had last stood. Several sets of boots had disturbed the dust, and one smaller print had smeared into a short drag near the wall. He held his hand over it, but the stone offered only shape and silence.

“They moved recently,” Vasha said.

“Yes,” Thorn replied.

Rendall kicked a loose rock across the chamber. “He said he would wait. He gave his word,” he said.

“Garrick gives whatever words serve him,” Darron said coolly.

The Oakhai turned her head towards him. “You sound very calm about that,” she said.

His expression closed. “Panicking won’t bring them back,” he replied.

“No,” she said. “But showing a little caring might go a long way.”

Darron finally looked at her before something cold passed through his eyes. “This is not the time,” he said and looked away again.

The ebony-skinned woman went still.

Thorn rose. The movement was quiet, but the chamber seemed to notice it. “Enough,” the Ee’dornil said.

Darron tightened his mouth. Rendall turned upon Vasha instead, desperate to put his anger somewhere. “You better track them, then?” he snapped. “Or is that just another story people tell about hybrids?”

Thorn looked at him. Rendall stopped speaking, and the silence held long enough for him to understand how little room he had.

“If you have nothing useful to add,” the large elf said, “be silent.”

Rendall’s hand moved towards his sword before his eyes travelled over Thorn’s size and the green glow in his eyes. He lowered it again. Darron looked ready to speak, then remained quiet.

Vasha’s tail lashed once before stilling. She lifted her chin, but Thorn saw the effort it took her to stand as though the words hadn’t hurt.

His voice changed when he addressed her, not soft enough for the others to mock, only steadier. “Can you find Miss Silverbell’s scent?” he asked.

She drew a slow breath. “I can certainly try,” she replied.

“Good,” Thorn said and nodded.

Rendall made a frustrated sound. “Through all this dust?” he asked.

Thorn kept his eyes upon Vasha. “Do you want to find your sister?” he asked.

Rendall swallowed his answer.

The archer stepped into the chamber’s centre and closed her eyes. Her ears shifted towards the two passages as she breathed in carefully. Dust. Old linen. Blood. Stone. Fear. Beneath the traces left by too many bodies, she found something familiar: Suraia’s herbs, smoke from their fire and honey faintly clinging where it hadn’t been fully cleaned from her fingers.

Vasha opened her eyes. “This way,” she said.

Thorn nodded. “Lead on,” he said.

Rendall stepped forwards. “If you are wrong—” he began.

“If she is wrong, we lose time,” Thorn said. “If you keep speaking, we lose more.”

The half-elf closed his mouth.

Thorn turned towards the passage ahead. “I am going to find Miss Silverbell. With or without your help. If you follow, you follow. If you hinder us, I will leave you behind.”

No one challenged him.

Vasha led with her bow raised, choosing her footing before Rendall’s lantern reached it. Thorn followed close enough that anyone trying to reach her would first have to pass him. Darron and Rendall came after them, tense and silent, their steps slowing whenever the lantern swung away from the uneven ground.

The tunnel swallowed them. Somewhere ahead, Suraia’s trail led deeper into the mountain, and Vasha and Thorn followed.