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Then the chains suspending the throne begin to shiver. Not violently. But with the sound of something too large to be hidden anymore.

Behind it—subtle at first—an outline appears.

A vertical slit of space, seamless and jagged, splitting down the wall like a surgical incision being pulled open by invisible hands.

I exhale once, slow and sharp. “There it is.”

The door behind the throne is not a door. Not exactly. It’s an archway cut directly into the Keep’s foundation, stone swallowing itself inward. It shouldn’t have been there. It wasn’t there when we came in. But it’s always been there, hasn’t it? Branwen didn’t need it toexist.She just needed it towait.

The light inside the doorway pulses with a different kind of energy. Not Hollow magic. Not Branwen’s blood-spun madness. This is older. Wilder. It feels like falling and drowning and being born all at once. Whatever’s through there—it isn’t part of this realm.

Luna steps forward, and the seal dims beneath her as if it’s released her from the ritual now that its purpose is fulfilled. Her movements are slow, deliberate, and she doesn’t look back—not at me, not at any of us. She walks toward the throne, toward the doorway yawning open behind it like a god’s open mouth.

I follow. Of course I follow.

Riven is already behind me, his hand near his blade, not because he expects to use it, but because it’s instinct to guard her, even now.

Lucien remains still, but his gaze is pinned to the doorway, his expression unreadable. He doesn’t speak. The stiffness in his jaw tells me enough—he’s expecting a fight, or something worse.

“Is that it?” Elias says, but there’s no snark left in his voice. Just the echo of someone trying not to believe what they’re seeing. “Please tell me that’s notthedoor. Because it looks like it leads directly into someone’s recurring nightmare.”

“It is the door,” Orin confirms. He moves forward at last, his stride unhurried, his expression utterly composed. “And yes. It leads exactly where you think it does.”

“Cool. Fantastic,” Elias mutters, shifting closer to Luna like proximity might save him from whatever’s pulsing through that arch. “On a scale from ‘sacrificial’ to ‘eldritch mistake,’ how cursed are we about to be?”

“Very,” I say, because honesty is a rare luxury down here, and I like the sound of him squirming.

Luna glances back once, her gaze sweeping over all of us. Her expression is unreadable, but not closed. It’s something else. Like she’s already halfway between here and whatever waits through the gate, and part of her wants to be pulled back, but won’t say it aloud.

The light from the portal casts an unnatural glow across her skin. It makes her look too sharp, too real. Like she’s the onlytrue thing in this realm, and everything else—us, this Keep, this tomb of Branwen’s design—is just illusion.

Silas steps beside her with a crooked grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “So... uh. Are we walking through that together, or is this like a ‘you go first and if you scream we turn back’ situation? Because I vote for ‘together.’ For emotional reasons. Also survival.”

Luna’s lips twitch, but she doesn’t smile.

Instead, she steps through.

The light swallows her instantly. No scream. No sound. No shift in the portal. Just—gone. I don’t hesitate. I follow. Because whatever waits on the other side, it’s not a question of whether I trust her. It’s whether I’m willing to be left behind. And I’m not.

The portal spits us into stillness. No scream. No rift. No falling. Just the sudden, jarring shift from the ancient weight of the Keep into something colder, older, and far more opulent. For a moment, none of us speak. We’re too busy looking—no,devouringwhat’s in front of us.

The room is massive. Cathedral-high ceilings lost in shadow. Vaulted arches carved in metallic script that catches light from nowhere and glows faint gold. The floor is marble, but not the white-veined kind found in noble palaces—this is obsidian inlaid with coins, thousands of them, sealed beneath the surface like they were frozen mid-fall.

And the mounds—gods.

Gold. Everywhere.

Mountains of it, like waves frozen mid-crest. Coins spilling across the floor in glittering chaos. Ornate chalices, blades with gemmed hilts, crowns snapped in half and carelessly discarded beside opal-encrusted armor. It’s wealth beyond comprehension. Empire-level. The kind of hoard kings would sell their kingdoms for, the kind of treasure gods would bleed each other over.

My mouth goes dry.

It hits like a drug.

This isn’t just currency. This is power. A kingdom reduced to glittering waste, hoarded like a dragon’s final confession. And in the center of it, half-buried beneath a sheared bust of some long-dead monarch, rests a black pedestal that hums with the same magic as the seal Luna woke.

I step forward without meaning to. The echo of my boots over coin makes the others hesitate behind me. This is avault, yes—but not one meant to be opened. Not a gift. Atrapdisguised in seduction. And fuck, does it seduce.

I feel it in my blood, in my bones. Gold hums beneath my skin like memory.