Winter Flint's Arc

Chapter 10 of 18

The clans bent to the work. Chalk scratched stone. Voices stayed low. Winter moved between groups, checking each section against the next, while Esmerelda copied the spiral pattern into her journal with steady, even strokes. Then the door shifted. A crack ran down its center, thin as a hair, and the cold air in the tunnel turned colder. Liri's wings snapped open. "It's pushing," she whispered. Amber dropped her chalk. "We don't have the warning yet. Half the lines aren't read." Her voice stayed level, but her hands were tight against her apron. Madrigal stepped close to the seal. "It won't wait for us to finish. We brace it now, or we lose it." Durgan was already moving, calling his stone-carvers forward with their iron and timber. Winter looked at the unread carvings, then at the door. He chose. "Brace it," he said. "Every clan, hands on. We hold what we have." They moved together — gnome, sprite, elf, dwarf, satyr — shoulders against stone while Thyrsus wedged beams into the cracks. The door held. Barely. But it held because they held it together, and when Winter stepped back, breathing hard, he saw the warning still half-unread on the wall — and knew whatever waited behind that door had just learned they were here.