Kai felt the pressure before he saw anything.It came from the dark, low and slow, like something breathing after a very long sleep. His fists came up on instinct, knuckles aching from the last fight he hadn't fully recovered from. Behind him, he heard boots shuffling backward across stone — the expedition team retreating without being told to.Even Victor Hale looked rattled, and Victor didn't rattle."That pressure," the old explorer muttered, more to himself than anyone.Kai didn't answer. He was too busy trying to place the feeling clawing up his spine. It wasn't the assassins' cold, practiced menace. It wasn't the dead hum of a government war-machine's targeting core. It definitely wasn't Shen Tian's crimson, controlled burn.This was old. Old in a way that made his instincts scream at him to run, even though every part of his training told him not to."Stay behind me," he said to Shen Tian, low.Shen Tian raised an eyebrow, and for a second the fear in the room cracked just enou

Kai stared at Shen Tian.For the first time since meeting him, Kai saw something he had never expected to see in his mentor's eyes.Fear.Not surprise. Not anger.Fear.The message still glowed on Kai's device.“ASK SHEN TIAN WHAT HE DID TO YOUR MASTER.”Kai's grip tightened around it until the edges bit into his palm.Elias's face rose in his mind, unbidden. The man who raised him. The man who taught him to read a room before he could read a book. The man who died shielding him from something Kai still didn't fully understand. And now this."Master Shen." Kai's voice came out flatter than he intended. Shen Tian's expression shifted, quick and involuntary. "What?"Kai closed the distance between them, one measured step at a time. "What did you do to Elias?"The chamber went silent enough that Kai could hear his own pulse.Victor Hale looked between them, hands raised like he was trying to physically hold the air apart. "Whoa… what are you two talking about?"Shen Tian's jaw worked. "I

The metallic device in Kai's hand suddenly went dark.He stared at it, turning it over like it might apologize for dying on him."Why was this here?" he asked, glancing at Shen Tian.Shen Tian shook his head. "I don't know.""You don't know a lot of things for a man who's been leading us through a death trap.""I've been leading us through a death trap successfully. That's the part you keep forgetting."Kai wanted to press him further, but before he could get a word out, the entire chamber trembled.BOOM!A crack split open beneath the stone platform. Everyone stumbled back. The ancient survivor's expression, normally unreadable as carved stone, actually shifted."Something is waking.""That's not ominous at all," Victor muttered, already backing toward the wall.The floor split wide open, and instead of the darkness everyone braced for, warm green light poured out. Then came a scent that made no sense at all: fresh grass, rain, flowers."We are hundreds of meters underground," Victor

The Heartwood Fruit rested in Kai's palm, warm as a heartbeat, and around him the surviving expedition members were caught fast in a cage of living roots. Nobody dared move. Victor's eyes cut to Kai, sharp with fear he was trying to disguise as authority."What does it mean by one custodian?"Kai didn't answer. His gaze stayed locked on the ancient silver tree as it pulsed again, THUMP, and every root in the garden tightened at once. Screams broke out around them."Mr. Hale!""Get these things off me!""Do something!"Victor rounded on the old survivor. "You said this place responds to hostility!""It does.""Then tell us how to leave!""I don't know."Victor's face drained of color. "You don't know? You've survived in here longer than any of us have been alive!""This garden existed before your civilization," the old man said, eyes fixed on the tree. "I know what it is. I do not know what it wants from this generation."Kai looked down at the fruit in his hand. A pulse traveled from

The silver door towered over the garden like something that had been built by hands too large to belong to men, and beyond it, Kai could see her.Aria stood motionless in the darkness on the other side, her long hair drifting slowly as though she were suspended underwater, and the sight of her sent every rational thought out of Kai's head at once."Aria!" He was moving before he'd even decided to, boots skidding against the ancient stone.The old survivor stepped into his path so fast that Kai nearly collided with him."Stop.""Move." Kai's voice came out sharper than he intended, but he didn't care. She was right there."No.""She's in there. Do you understand that? She's *right there.*""I know." The survivor's tone didn't budge an inch, calm in a way that made Kai want to shake him. "And that is exactly why you are not going through that door.""Then why are you stopping me?" Kai demanded, fists clenching at his sides.The old man's gaze didn't leave the silver surface of the door.