Stryker's Arc

Chapter 10 of 16

Stryker stood still, her palm flat against the monolith. The stone was cold beneath her scales. Her grandmother had touched this same surface decades ago, had traced these same symbols with shaking hands. The validation wasn't something she would find—it was already here. But she needed the gem itself. Stryker turned toward the entrance and saw Guidry waiting near the flooded doorway. The chamber entrance sat three feet underwater, just as Croaker's map had shown. She moved forward, the water rising past her belly as she descended. Inside, the ruins opened into a circular sanctuary. Twisted vines covered the walls, woven with flowers that glowed faintly in the dim light. At the center stood a stone platform carved with the same serpent patterns from outside. And there, resting in a depression worn smooth by time, lay the Scaled Gem. It pulsed with soft light, each facet cut to mirror the pattern of snake scales. Her grandmother had described it perfectly—down to the way it seemed to breathe. Stryker reached for it, and the moment her scales touched its surface, she knew. Every word had been true. Every detail exact. Her grandmother's mind had been clear, her memory sharp, right up to the end. Then Guidry hissed behind her. Stryker turned and saw what he'd spotted in the shadows beyond the sanctuary's far archway. Robes hung from the collapsed beams overhead—tattered fabric covered in symbols that didn't match the ancient carvings. Mud and algae crusted the cloth, and the smell of decay drifted from deeper in the ruins. Fresh claw marks scored the stone beneath the robes. Something had been here recently. Something that wore those robes or dragged them here as trophies. The gem sat in her hand, proof of everything she'd searched for, but they weren't alone in these ruins. Whatever had escaped the containment gate had claimed this place. And now it knew they were here. Stryker closed her fingers around the gem and looked back at the archway she'd entered through. The opalescent stone caught the light, shimmering with colors that reminded her of the gem's surface. She'd found what she came for. Her grandmother's stories were real. But leaving with the proof meant carrying it past whatever waited in the darkness beyond those robes. Guidry moved closer to her, his eyes fixed on the shadows. The sanctuary had given her validation, but it had also become a trap. Getting out would cost more than getting in.