Page 242 of Emylia

There was no light, no sense of distance—only darkness and the echo of my shallow breathing. Just when I thought I couldn’t take another second, the space shifted. Air changed. The tight pressure of stone gave way—and I tumbled into something vast.

Cool air kissed my skin, wet and rich like rainfall in spring. It wasn’t the stale, dead air I’d braced for—itbreathed.

I paused on all fours, chest heaving, the phantom grip of the tunnel still clinging to my back.

Then slowly, I rose.

The space was dark, but not void. Stalactites hung from the ceiling like daggers of bone, glistening with moisture. Shadows shifted against the stone like breathing things.

Fingers brushed mine—warm, grounding.

Sebastian.

Without a word, he threaded our hands together, and something in my chest steadied.

“Follow me,” he whispered.

There was no point arguing. I let him lead me deeper. The ground beneath our feet was uneven, and I stumbled more than once over loose stones, but he never let go. The further we went, the more the cavern felt like something out of a dream—wrong and right all at once. Foreign, but… familiar. Like it had always been waiting.

Soon, we were walking side by side. The path widened and narrowed unpredictably—one moment barely wide enough for our shoulders to brush, the next stretching open wide enough to march an army through. The walls gleamed faintly with damp lichen, each step echoing softly into the silence.

Then we rounded a bend.

And the world changed.

The cavern exploded outward, a hollow the size of a cathedral carved into the bones of the earth. The roof stretched so high I nearly lost my balance craning upward.

My mouth parted, but no sound came.

Blue.

The entire ceiling was dappled in what looked like stars—no, not stars.It couldn’t be, it was still daylight outside. But it was glowing like melting constellations, scattered across the rock above in drifts of soft, celestial light.

Every drop of water from the stalactites echoed like the drip of a holy altar. Every flame along the wall flickered like a breath caught in reverence.

I couldn’t move.

And then I saw the carvings.

The walls weren’t natural. They’d been chiseled, shaped—crafted. Elegant columns lined the chamber, each one carved in smooth spirals, rising into the dark like pillars meant to hold up the sky. At the top of each column sat wide copper bowls, and inside them: flames. Pale orange fire that didn’t smoke, that didn’t sputter—just danced slowly, casting flickering light that mingled with the blue bioluminescence.

It looked like magik reborn.

“What in the actual heck…” I breathed.

This couldn’t be real. This cavern—thistemple, because that’s what it was—too precise, too beautiful, too sacred to be random. I half expected a glowing deity to descend from the ceiling and demand an offering.

“I don’t know if we should be here,” I whispered. “It feels… holy. But not in the safe way.”

Sebastian didn’t seem worried. If anything, he looked amused. “Why?”

“What if this is some hidden entrance to Elinthia or something?”

His laugh echoed around us like it belonged here. “If that’s the case, then I’m not worried. Not if I’m with you.”

A snort escaped me. “Why? Because they’ll be too busy punishing me for all the rules I’ve broken and you’ll slip away unnoticed?”

He stepped closer, eyes glittering. “No. Because in a room full of Gods… you’d still be the one I’d bet on.”

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