Chapter Forty-One · The Skull’s Riddle

Lyra lowered her sword.

The High Lord snapped his fingers. A tall, rectangular gate of darkness tore open in front of Sion.

With a flick of his hand, he shoved her through.

Lyra sprang after her.

The gate sealed and vanished.

The air changed the moment they crossed.

Heavy. Stale. Like a sealed chamber buried for years.

At the center, a stone pillar rose from the ground.

Old. Deliberate. Built for something.

A black skull rested at its peak.

Thin strands of smoke bled from its hollow eye sockets, drifting slowly into the air.

Sion swallowed.

“What now…?”

The skull spoke.

“Welcome, you who are driven by fate.”

“What?”

She blinked, almost forgetting the tightness in her chest from a moment ago.

She stepped closer.

“If you wish to proceed, prove that you are worthy.

Fail, and you will remain here until this place devours what is left of you.”

Lyra moved in beside her, sword raised, her gaze fixed on the skull.

“What has, and does not have, a past, a present, and a future?”

Sion flinched.

“Seriously…?”

She glanced around.

No one.

She tried speaking again—

but the skull only repeated the question.

Lyra lowered her sword slightly.

“Not alive,” she said. “A mechanism.”

“And if it’s a mechanism… there’s a way through.”

The ache still lingered in Lyra’s body, even with the hooks gone.

She backed to the wall opposite the skull and sank down.

Sion followed, dropping down beside her, chin propped in her hands.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Lyra let out a slow breath. “Don’t answer too fast.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sion muttered. “I’m not stupid.”

She pushed herself up and started pacing.

“Something that both has and doesn’t have a past, a present, and a future…”

She stopped.

Blinked.

“Nothing?”

A sharp crack.

Sion yelped as her head snapped to the side.

She froze for a beat, then clutched her cheek. A bright welt rose almost instantly.

Lyra spun.

No hand. No wind.

Only the skull, its thin strands of smoke drifting as before.

Sion stared at it.

“You just slapped me?”

No answer.

“Fine,” she muttered, jaw tight. “Then it’s death.”

Another crack.

No hesitation.

This time, the other cheek.

Sion flinched. “Ow—seriously?”

Lyra drew a slow breath and held it.

“Don’t answer it.”

“I’m not letting it talk down to me,” Sion shot back.

She covered her face, turning slightly away.

“One last try.”

Lyra opened her mouth—

“Something that doesn’t exist—”

Crack.

A blow from behind.

Sion stumbled. “How is it even doing that?”

Lyra stepped in and pulled her back.

“That’s enough.”

She faced the skull.

The smoke flowed, steady and even.

A faint ripple brushed across her skin.

She stepped forward.

The smoke coiled at once.

A sharp crescent formed and shot out.

Lyra slipped aside.

Steel rang as her blade caught it.

“Lyra!”

Another crescent came.

She brought her sword up and caught it.

More followed. Faster now.

No pattern.

Only pressure.

“It’s getting mad!” Sion shouted.

“No,” Lyra said, shifting her footing. “It’s forcing us to answer faster.”

“Then answer it!”

“Not yet.”

Another strike.

Lyra dropped low. The edge sheared off a lock of her hair.

She shut everything else out.

Only the smoke.

It wasn’t chaos.

It was a cycle.

Beginning. Continuation. Dissolving.

Not separate.

We divide it.

But it doesn’t divide.

Another crescent came.

She slipped past it, breath steady.

The cold in her chest stirred with each movement.

Past. Present. Future.

Not three things.

Just names for the same flow.

Lyra stilled.

“Lyra?” Sion called.

Two crescents cut toward her at once.

At the last instant, her blade rose.

Her voice dropped.

“What has, and does not have…”

She lifted her gaze.

“Time.”

Everything stopped.

The smoke froze.

The forming crescents unraveled midair.

The chamber fell silent.

The smoke in the skull’s eye sockets guttered out.

A rectangular shadow of a doorway opened in the wall.

Lyra stilled.

Something about the chamber had shifted.

As if the way out had moved.

She tightened her grip on Sion’s hand.

“Let’s go.”

They lunged through. Wind slammed into them.

They stood on a cliff overlooking the Citadel’s far side.

Lyra turned back.

The twisted black structure rose behind them.

The Citadel of Drazhune.

Sion glanced at her.

“We lost the horse.”