Keith Sterling's Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

The owl flew until the hills went gray and bare. Keith followed until his legs burned. Then the bird slowed and dropped. Ahead stood a black door, sunk in a pit of shadow, taller than three men. Its stone face was cracked in a thousand lines. Keith stopped at the bottom step. This was the vault Lysandra had named. The place men entered and never left. He held his signet against his chest. The thread inside pulled him forward. He climbed the steps. The door had no handle, no keyhole, no seam. He pressed both palms to the cold stone. Nothing moved. "Open," he said. His voice died in the pit. He remembered the oracle's warning. The vault takes something before it gives. He had run here without deciding what to lose. The cracks began to glow, a dull red, like coals. A voice came from the stone, low and flat. "You want what lies within. Name your price. Give me the truth you hide, or the ring you carry, or the years off your life." Keith's hand closed around the signet. He could not give the ring. It held the only trace of the woman he sought. Without it, the rite was dead. He would not trade his soulmate away to reach him. "Not the ring," he said. "Take the truth." The stone waited. Keith swallowed. "I've spent my life pretending I didn't want this. I told everyone I was fine alone. I wasn't. I ached for him every night and hid it behind a hard face. I'm ashamed of how much I need to be loved." His voice cracked on the last word. The red glow flared white. The confession left him like a pulled thread, and something in his chest went hollow and light. The door groaned. Stone ground on stone. It split down the center and swung inward. Cold air rolled out. Inside, on a low black altar, sat a single ring. Its face caught the dim light. Keith stepped in and lifted it. It was warm. He knew at once it was the third. He tucked it beside the other two. Three now. All three, together in his pouch. The silver owl swept past him and out the door. Keith turned to follow. But the door was already closing behind the bird. He lunged for the gap. Stone met stone with a boom. He stood in the dark vault, three rings in hand, the way out sealed. He pressed the signet up. The thread still pointed, taut and warm, toward the man whose name he needed. It pointed at the far wall, into deeper stone. Keith had the price. He had the three rings. Now he was shut inside the place men never leave, and the only path led further down.