Excerpt

Well, she'd learned one thing today. How to feel foolish in just a few hours. Had she really expected to find Jannik's great-grandfather and his famous artifact on the very first day she'd been looking? Jannik was a seasoned antiquarian and had been searching for years, exhausting site after site before finally arriving at this one. Rowan had only been his assistant for three months.

The sounds of digging lessened over at the other end of the ruins and Rowan could imagine they were taking their lunch break, a chance to rest against the stones and pass around some bread and cheese. Her mouth watered.

She straightened up with a groan and stepped across the lumpy ground, avoiding the obvious rubble covered with moss and grass. Ahead, the walls fell away and the ground smoothed a little between her and the next ruined wall, leaving a much easier path. She gravitated that way, but the moment her boot fell on the slightly depressed ground, it seemed to give a little under her feet.

Her heart plummeted. Soft ground at a dig site signaled danger to anyone with an ounce of sense.

Rowan threw herself backward, but not before the ground fell out from under her feet. She plummeted fast enough she couldn't even scream.

* * *

For three full heartbeats, Rowan thought the earth had swallowed her, boots, belt, and all. Then she landed with a bone jarring thump, and all the breath raced from her lungs. She didn't have the time—let alone air—to scream.

Pain radiated out from her spine, and her fingers clenched involuntarily at the soft, sifting dirt beneath her. Even more alarming were the sparks flitting across her vision, like fireflies across the sun.

Finally, she sucked in a breath. She blinked away the flashes of light until she realized that she was staring up at a Rowan-shaped hole in the ground.

Up. Not down. Ground was not supposed to be above anything. That was kind of the point.

Rowan groaned and tried to roll, finding that her body still worked, and she hadn't actually broken anything. A huge blessing considering how she'd blundered into an excessively stupid mistake. She'd guessed there were underground chambers, and she hadn't waited for the workers to make sure the site was stable before tromping around looking for a way down.

Well, she'd found a way down all right.

She stifled a moan and pushed up on her elbows, ignoring the new twinges in her back. Then she put a hand to her head and peered at her new surroundings.

She'd fallen into a long, narrow hallway, and from the looks of it, the ceiling had collapsed long ago, leaving only a deceptively thick carpet of moss and grass to cover the gaps.

The hallway stretched in front of her and behind in an unbroken line, and the walls rose above her, smooth and twice as tall as Darryn.

There was no way she was climbing out by herself. She opened her mouth to yell for help and hesitated.

The hall led from the same direction as the stairwell she'd been surveying, and the afternoon sun streamed through the hole she'd made, providing light. The hall continued on behind her, an unknown portal that could lead to anything.

This was what she'd wanted. She'd found what she was looking for, even if it had been by accident. Surely it wouldn't hurt if she explored just a bit before she called for a rescue.

Rowan climbed out of the dislodged dirt and grass and faced the open hallway. With one hand on the wall to steady herself, she crept forward. Her shadow stretched long ahead of her, disappearing into the gloom beyond.

She counted thirty steps before her shadow blended into the darkness around her and she had to squint to see anything ahead of her.

Just a little bit more, she told herself. Why didn't I think to bring something as simple as flint and tinder?

Thirty more steps, and her eyes had adjusted enough to see the edges of the hallway.

Rowan bit her lip. Hallways usually led somewhere. They had rooms leading off them, or they opened onto other passageways. But this one remained straight, as if leading to one place.

It ended in a door of stone, tall enough to admit a draft horse.

Rowan's heart thumped. This had to be important. Someone had built this hallway to lead to this room for a reason.

The door sat in its frame, a solid piece of rock set perfectly flush with the wall.

Rowan ran her hands over the polished surface, looking for a handle or latch, but it was unbroken and unyielding. Pushing on it did nothing, though that wasn't surprising given her lack of strength. Her seeking hands found a panel beside the door, as smooth as glass, but it didn't seem to mean anything. There was no etching on it, and the door remained firmly shut no matter what she did.

She ran her fingertips along the joint between the door and the door frame and didn't even find a crack.

This door was sealed. Not like rubble had blocked the stairwell. This seemed sealed on purpose.

Just like a hallway had to lead somewhere, a sealed door had to be sealed for a reason.

Now she really should call for help, but something stopped her. Something more than just the curiosity she'd been following. A feeling tugged in her gut, uncomfortable and compelling. She needed to see what was behind the door.

She drew the little clay disks from the pocket of her apron. The fire charges carried a blasting spell laid there by a Land Magician. The most expensive equipment at the dig, but if the door really was guarding something important, it would be well worth it.

She hadn't used one before, but the concept was simple enough even for the workers. And Rowan had been on track to become a mage, even if she'd failed.

She shook her head, and before she could think better of it, she broke the first disk in half, severing the bonds on the magic inside.

Then she dropped the two halves at the bottom corners of the door and ran for it, each step jolting in her spine.

Halfway down the hall, she crouched and covered her head, and a second later a bang echoed up the corridor as the magic arced between the two halves of the fire charge.

The spell resulted in a disappointing hairline crack across the otherwise smooth door.

She'd give it one more try. And if it didn't work it would be time to call for help. Perhaps patience and pickaxes would work better.

She broke another fire charge and sprinted down the hall again.

This time a crack and a muffled thud followed the bang, and she returned to the door with her heart in her throat.

A chunk had fallen out of the door, leaving a hole large enough Rowan could squeeze through.

She took a deep breath and ducked her head, sticking her shoulder and one leg through the hole, shimmying through until she spilled out on the other side.

Only when she straightened did she realize she could see better than in the hallways.

A steady glow came from the back of the small room, through another hall. It illuminated the walls and rubble piled in the corners of the antechamber. The remains could have once been barrels or furniture, but now it was just burned and blackened debris. An ancient fire had stained the walls dark with soot and left a coating of ash over the floor at her feet.

She shuffled forward, holding her breath as she moved into the hallway beyond. The tug in her gut turned into a knot of anticipation.

Another room opened before her, lined with stone tables and benches, all built for someone taller than even her brother. The fire hadn't reached here, but tools lay scattered across the tabletops and floor as if blasted back.

It looked like a workroom or maybe a mage's laboratory, left spotless except for the dropped tools.

Her boot stirred a pile of ancient dust strangely incongruous in the otherwise stark room.

Against the far wall, a black, metal arch framed a pedestal which held a gold and silver lantern glowing with a cold, white light. Where the sun painted the world in yellow and gold hues, this washed the room in a sickly silver unlike any lightstone she'd ever seen.

Hanging beside it in midair, as if floating in a spell, was a young man.

Stefan had told them stories at bedtime of princesses cursed to sleep for a hundred years until someone woke them.

But no one would be waking this young man. His lips were blue with death, and one blemish marred his skin, an open sore on his neck. His chest had certainly been still for years, decades, maybe centuries, but he looked like he'd died yesterday.

Rowan had to swallow several times to clear the lump in her throat. Then she turned around, squeezed back out through the crack in the door, and made her way to the jagged hole in the ceiling.

Only then did she start yelling.