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I feel it instinctively that whatever we find inside.

It will change everything.

24

ZEPHIRAN

Something is wrong.

The vault’s air presses against my skin, thick with old magic, of forgotten curses humming against my bones. It’s in my teeth, in the slow, insidious coil of heat creeping through my veins.

This isn’t how it was supposed to be.

I wasn’t even supposed to be here. But there’s an almost undeniable urge that I should come.

The plan was simple—get in, get the relic, get out before the High Council even realized we’d touched it.

Yet, as Naira steps past the threshold, her fingers brushing against the enchanted steel of the vault door, I know we have already made a mistake.

The magic inside is wrong.

Not the kind that guards a treasure.

Not the kind that keeps thieves away.

The kind that waits.

I inhale sharply, trying to clear the heaviness pressing into my skull. But the moment I do, I feel it—something beneath the layers of magic, something old, something that reeks of familiarity.

The realization slams into my ribs like a fist.

My father was here.

Before me. Before us.

He knows.

Fuck, he’s aware.

I should have expected this.

I should have known the moment I started moving pieces into place, the time I let myself believe that I could ever outmaneuver him, that he was already ahead of me.

The curse twists against my bones, sensing the shift in the atmosphere, knowing before I do that I have walked directly into a trap.

And worse?

I brought her with me.

Naira moves with purpose, her gaze sharp, scanning the rows of enchanted artifacts, the jagged remnants of a hundred stolen powers locked in this graveyard of greed.

She doesn’t sense it.

She doesn’t feel it the way I do.

Because this magic was never meant for her. It was meant for me.

I follow her deeper into the vault, my body moving on instinct, my pulse pounding in my throat.