Chapter 18 · Echoes Beneath the Gate

The stone door exhaled.

Lio felt the breath against her face before she heard it—a damp, ancient gust carrying the stink of wet iron and something much older. Dust lifted from the floor in thin spirals. The third seal burned in her palm, its silver lines crawling over her skin like living veins.

Behind her, Mara pressed one hand to the gash beneath her ribs. “Tell me that was the door settling.”

“It wasn’t,” Oro said inside Lio’s skull.

For once, the dragon’s voice held no amusement. No contempt. Only a low, measured fear that rolled through Lio’s bones.

“That is not a door,” Oro continued. “It is a threshold.”

Cael leaned against the wall beside them, one hand clamped over his left side. Blood had soaked through his coat and gathered at his fingertips. His breathing came shallow and controlled, but the control was fraying. A faint black light pulsed beneath the skin of his throat.

Lio turned toward him. “Cael?”

His eyes snapped to hers. For half a second, they were the cold gray eyes of the inspector who had hunted her across Veyra’s rooftops. Then his expression twisted.