Page 87 of Cursed By the Dawn

Erebus urged me to look at him, but I couldn’t bear it.

“I won’t let him take you.” His words trembled with anger, spoken like a vow. His fingers lingered near my collarbone, as he palmed Raelion’s mark. “When we destroy Raelion, this will be destroyed, too. I swear it.”

I laughed, tears welling in my eyes. “People don’t get cured from Corruption, Erebus. Theydie.”

Erebus’s eyes met mine, blazing with an intensity that stole my breath. “You’re not lost, Esmer.” Softly, so tenderly it hurt, his fingers brushed back my hair. I leaned into his touch, desperate to believe him. “Not now. Not ever. The shadows yield to you; the stars fall short of your light. You are the force that darkness cannot break—the hope Mithras and Raelion never saw coming. We will find a way.”

Somewhere in the depths of my despair, his words reached the part of me still desperate to fight, still desperate to hope. But Raelion was there, too, whispering his promises, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was already too late for me.

The citadel was a labyrinth at night, its halls twisting and turning like the coils of some great serpent. The embellishments that adorned every surface seemed to glow faintly in the dim light, but there was something unnerving about their sheen. The gold’s radiance pulsated faintly, as if the walls were breathing.

Odd.

I followed close behind Erebus, my hand never straying far from the hilt of my dagger. Every creak, every footfall, and every murmur from distant corridors set my nerves on edge.

The final hallway felt different from the rest of the citadel.

Golden decor gave way to stone walls slick with condensation. The hall looked forgotten, untouched by the gaudy splendor behind us. Even the torches here were fewer and farther between, flames weak and sputtering as they cast feeble light against the rough stone. At the end of the corridor stood a heavy curtain, its surface dull and ragged.

Erebus drew his sword.

“This is it,” he said, voice low. “The entrance to the tombs.”

“The curtain?” I asked, my voice breaking the uneasy silence. “Why is no one guarding it?”

Erebus approached the wall of fabric, yanking it aside. A thick cloud of dust immediately plumed around us, making us cough. When the dust finally settled, twin iron doors were revealed. They were carved with seven animals: a wolf, a dragon, a stag, a bear, a hawk, and two serpents.

“I don’t know why it’s not being guarded. Or why it’s so dusty,” he murmured, fingers ghosting across the carvings. “When I lived here, the Weaver tombs were always heavily protected. And this…” He trailed off, fingers pausing on a deep groove in the stone. “Was deliberately sealed.”

“Can you open it?”

Erebus crouched, inspecting the base of the doors. I knelt beside him, my hands running over the iron. There were seven beasts in total; perhaps they each symbolized a Weaver.

“Here,” Erebus said, resting his hand on a faint indentation. “This is the locking mechanism. Some force should break it.”

We worked to unseal the door, our combined efforts causing the apparatus to shift. The stone groaned loudly as it moved, the sound reverberating through the narrow hallway like a warning. My arms ached from the effort, but finally, the door slid aside with a grinding roar that seemed loud enough to wake the dead.

Pulling the curtain back in place, we swiftly stepped inside.

The narrow staircase beyond was darker than the hallway behind us. The shadows here were deeper, almost teeming with life. Still, they would not heed my call. Erebus led the way, his movements cautious and deliberate, and I followed close behind, my hand brushing the damp stone wall for balance. The air grew even colder as we descended the staircase, the chill seeping through my clothes and biting into my skin. The faint sound of dripping water echoed somewhere in the distance, but otherwise, the silence was absolute.

When we reached the bottom, the passage opened into what should have been a cavernous chamber. Instead, the path ahead was blocked by a massive cave-in, jagged rocks piled high and dust coating every surface. I gasped as my toe knocked into something metal: a helmet. When I looked more carefully at the rocks, my breath snagged, shallow and uneven.Bones.

There were bones everywhere.

Skeletons and the remnants of armor lay scattered across the floor.

Erebus approached the rubble, picking up a metal circlet that had been wedged among a rock, a skeletal arm, and a cracked pauldron. The item was ancient and damaged, but its base still shone a brilliant gold. Erebus dusted it off, peering at an inscription in the metal.

“What does it say?” I asked, growing more uneasy by the second.

“It says, ‘eternal as the dream, enduring as the crown,’” he said slowly. “It’s a crown.”

Suddenly, as if it had bitten him, Erebus dropped it. The crownclangedagainst the ground, rolling into the shadows. Deep within me, somewhere in the back of my skull, I thought I heard Raelion laugh.

I shuddered, squeezing my arms to my chest.

“It’s King Gabriel’s. Mithras’s father,” Erebus said incredulously, raking his fingers through his hair. Bits of Corrupt blood was still clinging to it. “My parents and I once interpreted his dreams.” He knelt by King Gabriel’s broken pauldron, examining the lion and sun emblazoned into the golden metal. His thumb tentatively traced the sun’s numerous rays. “I wonder if Mithras even knows he’s down here.”