“Give me your bracelet, then!” Ivarr demanded.

  Catherine leveled her palm back at him. “How exactly do you intend to have me do that?”

  The boy, having no leverage against her anymore, fell to his knees, then onto his side, curled into a fetal position, and started crying.

  Catherine glanced at Barrel. “Should I offer him the deal now?”

  Barrel barked once.

  Catherine pondered for a while. If the cave really did lead to a place built to house an artefact for a god, then it should be filled with treasure as well. The Emberkind were known to keep lots of gold and jewels, after all.

  She approached Ivarr, her offer clear and simple. She kept enough distance to defend herself, just in case. “How about another deal?”

  Ivarr, still curled on the ground, didn’t respond.

  “We’ll work together to retrieve the artefact here. You get to have it, but everything else we find is mine.”

  Ivarr looked up and stopped crying. “What did you say?”

  “I’ll help you find it, and then I’ll give you the bracelet after.”

  “I don’t trust you, deceiver!”

  “Wouldn’t you want to fulfill your dream? Besides, I only want whatever treasure we find, and I can get a new bracelet after.”

  Ivarr stood up, pondering.

  Catherine extended her arm again. “A true deal this time.”

  Ivarr hesitated. The girl’s proposal sounded fair. He had been traveling for years with no luck, no money, and very little food. Left with no choice, he accepted Catherine’s proposal.

  “Deal,” he said, “but no tricks.”

  Catherine nodded, and while Ivarr gathered his belongings, words shimmered around the bracelet.

  Well done, you have gained your first assistant!

  Your new task is to retrieve the artefact,

  and your reward: all the loot along the way!

  Catherine giggled, gleeful. “Best. Gift. Ever!”

  After Ivarr finished gathering his things, he gave Catherine a brisk gesture to follow and headed toward the cliffside.

  “I suppose you already know where it is?” Catherine asked, falling in beside him.

  Ivarr nodded. “The hidden cave at the top of that cliff. You found it yesterday, I believe.”

  The cave. Catherine had almost forgotten, which was impressive, considering that was the whole reason she’d come here in the first place: to rummage through it for treasure.

  Ivarr glanced at her as they walked. “You really only wanted treasure?”

  Catherine didn’t even flinch. “I want to help my parents. They’ve been working hard for too long, and since… what do they call it… the Silent Decades, life’s been too hard. Especially for my father.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He works at the dockyard.” She hesitated, then added, “Well, he owns it. But he does a lot more than boss people around.”

  “Hold on,” Ivarr said, eyes wide, thoughts visibly sprinting. “You own the dockyard in Felgar?”

  Catherine nodded, a little wary now. “Yes?”

  Ivarr stared at her like she’d just announced she was secretly the queen. “Blue Rose Shipping? The one owned by the Baudelaires?”

  “Yup. That’s our family name,” Catherine said plainly. “My full name is Catherine Baudelaire… you don’t get the rest yet.”

  “If you’re a Baudelaire… that means you’re a noble!”

  Catherine just shrugged like the word meant little. “You can say that.”

  “What about your bracelet?” Ivarr asked, still staring at her wrist. “Where did you get that? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “My dad made it,” Catherine said, as if that explained everything. “With help from a mage. It’s a new invention, supposedly to make working fun for us.”

  Ivarr’s brow furrowed. “So why did it absorb my amulet if it’s only meant to help you with work?”

  Catherine shrugged, utterly unbothered. “No idea. I don’t even know the full details of how it works.”

  “Very interesting,” Ivarr murmured, and this time he sounded like he meant it.

  They eventually reached where the cave entrance should have been, only there was nothing but cliffside stone, solid and indifferent.

  Catherine’s bracelet pulsed.

  A thin needle of light slid out from it like a drawn thread, turning once in the air before pointing straight into the rock. As Catherine stepped closer, the cliff shimmered, then the stone dissolved out of sight, just like it had before.

  Catherine went first, without hesitation.

  Ivarr lingered a pace behind, rubbing his palms together. It was anticipation. His mouth twitched upward, like he was fighting not to smile too widely.

  A noble, he thought, almost giddy. From a line of inventors.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  His gaze flicked to her wrist again, to the clean precision of the light.

  And she handles enchantments like a scholar…

  Ivarr’s grin finally won. Finally. Someone who can actually help me retrieve an artefact.

  Catherine glanced back and found him still standing at the mouth of the cave.

  “Well?” she called.

  Ivarr blinked, snapped out of his thoughts, and hurried forward. The two of them, and Barrel, stepped into the dark together.

  The air changed immediately. Cooler, damp, and old. Their footsteps softened on stone as the light behind them dimmed, the hidden entrance sealing itself back into nothing.

  “Do you think anyone’s ever found this cave before?” Catherine asked, voice lowered despite herself.

  “Most likely not,” Ivarr replied. “It’s supposed to open only with the amulet.”

  “It opened for me yesterday.”

  “Maybe because the amulet was nearby,” Ivarr said, though he sounded less certain than he wanted to.

  They didn’t get much farther before both of them slowed.

  Something moved deeper inside. Footsteps, too many. A wet hiss, followed by low, hungry growls. Barrel stiffened beside Catherine, ears pricked, a warning rumble starting in his chest.

  Catherine’s hand drifted toward the ring on instinct, though her expression stayed stubbornly composed. “What was that?”

  Ivarr’s eyes narrowed into the dark. “Monsters,” he murmured. His grip tightened on his staff, weak crystal or not.

  They moved deeper into the cave at a careful crawl, keeping close to the walls and slipping from shadow to shadow. The floor was uneven, with slick stone, shallow puddles, and patches of grit that threatened to crunch underfoot. Catherine tested each step before committing her weight. Barrel did the same, though his restraint showed in the tightness of his shoulders and the rigid set of his tail. Ivarr, for all his bravado, had gone quiet.

  Ahead, the passage widened into a low chamber. Pale light leaked in from somewhere. Thin cracks in the ceiling, maybe, and it was enough to reveal movement.

  Something large shifted behind a cluster of rocks. Catherine eased forward until she could see it clearly.

  A lizard, no, a thing that resembled a lizard the way a boulder resembled a pebble. It was roughly Barrel’s size, thick-bodied, with a plated back and a blunt head that looked more like armor than flesh. Its tongue flicked, tasting the air. Its claws clicked softly on stone.

  Barrel’s growl started low.

  Catherine’s hand snapped down and gripped the scruff of his neck before it could deepen. “Quiet,” she breathed, not even looking at him.

  It was too late. The creature’s head jerked toward them. Its eyes, dull and predatory, fixed on the hiding place. For a beat, it didn’t move. Then it began to stalk forward. Ivarr swallowed audibly. Catherine didn’t flinch. She slid her left foot back, grounding herself, and raised her ring hand slightly.

  The lizard crept closer. Barrel strained, a tremor running through him, fury and fear tangled together. Catherine tightened her grip until the dog stopped shaking and held still.

  Now, she decided.

  Catherine rose from behind the rock in one clean motion and shouted, sharp as a crack of a whip. “HEY!”

  The creature snapped fully toward her and, like a switch had been flipped, it lunged.

  It sprinted fast, surprisingly so for its size. Claws skittered, body low, mouth parting to reveal teeth like broken glass. Catherine didn’t backpedal. She didn’t scream. She simply lifted her arm and aimed the ring like she’d done it a hundred times. The stone on the ring pulsed.

  A sphere of flame bloomed in front of her palm and launched forward with a hiss like a bellows exhaling. It struck the creature square in the chest, the impact blasting it off its feet.

  The creature slammed into stone with a wet crack. In seconds, the smell hit. Char, scorched scale, and something bitter underneath.

  Catherine fired one more time.

  The lizard’s thrashing slowed, then stopped, smoke curling from its body.

  Silence returned, heavy and sudden. Catherine exhaled once through her nose, more annoyed than shaken, and lowered her arm. Barrel let out a short, victorious bark.

  Ivarr straightened slowly, eyes wide like he’d just watched a miracle. “How did you do that without the incantation?” he demanded.

  Catherine gave him a side glance that said keep up. “It’s engraved,” she replied. “Combat rings carry pre-set spells. You just trigger them with a thought.”

  Ivarr stared at her ring as if it had personally insulted him. “Wha—then why did you chant earlier?!”

  She leaned in a fraction, voice light. “Just to let you know how it’s spoken the right way.”

  Then she turned back to the chamber, eyes scanning the dark beyond the smoking corpse.

  “And because,” she added, almost casually, “chanting makes it feel dramatic.”

  Ivarr spluttered, still offended, still stunned. “Unbelievable.”

  Catherine crouched beside the lizard at a safe distance, poking it with a small rock to make sure it was truly done. “Well, I kind of like chanting, actually. It’s like reciting a song.”

  Barrel nosed her elbow, urging her forward. Catherine rose again, dusted her hands, and nodded deeper into the cave. “Come on. If there’s one, there are more. Stay behind me.”

  Ivarr followed without hesitation. If there are more, then he should definitely stay close to her.

  They started walking again without slowing. Barrel kept close to her left side now, ears pricked, tail stiff. Behind them, Ivarr trailed a pace back, eyes fixed on Catherine’s wrist. The grin returned to his face like it had never left—wide, bright, and just a little unhinged. Best. Decision. Ever.

  They eventually reached a wider cavern, too wide to feel natural. A pale, strange light poured from above in narrow shafts. It painted the stone in silver streaks and made the damp walls glisten, and it wasn’t empty.

  Several of the lizards crawled within the chamber, thicker and longer than the first, their plated backs scraping softly against rock. Above, bats clung to the ceiling in clusters, twitching and shifting as though the light offended them.

  Catherine slowed at the mouth of the cavern, eyes scanning, calculating. Then she stepped in anyway.

  The nearest lizard’s head snapped toward her. Another followed. The bats stirred, their bodies loosening like a dark curtain preparing to fall.

  Ivarr opened his mouth to warn her, but Catherine leveled her left hand toward the ground. She spread her fingers, palm down, and the air around her changed. Dust lifted from the ground in a slow spiral, pebbles trembling as though tugged by invisible strings. The grains gathered beneath her hand, swirling tighter and tighter until they formed the vague outline of a weapon.

  Ivarr stared as the shape sharpened. The dust compressed and darkened, solidifying with a soft, crystalline sound until a polearm lay in Catherine’s grasp as solid as forged steel, its surface faintly shimmering with leftover grit. A long handle, tipped with a hammer, a hooked rear edge, and a spear.

  A bat broke from the ceiling and dove straight for her face. Catherine pivoted on her heel and swung. The polearm whistled through the air and struck the bat mid-flight with clean, practiced precision. The creature spun away and slammed into the cavern wall with a sickening thud.

  Before its echo finished, two of the reptiles surged forward, jaws parting.

  Catherine’s expression didn’t change. She pointed her weapon straight at the approaching lizards. Twin arrows of flame formed instantly—long, bright, and sharp as spearheads—hovering for a heartbeat beside her shoulder. She hurled them, streaking forward and slamming into the first lizard’s chest and the second one’s neck.

  Fire blossomed on impact, clinging to the creatures as they recoiled, shrieking and thrashing at the air as if they could bite the heat away.

  More bats peeled off the ceiling, an entire swarm this time. Catherine lifted the polearm again. Flames crawled along the weapon’s edge, wrapping it in a bright, living sheath. When the next bat dove, she met it in a sweeping strike that didn’t merely knock it aside. It caught instantly and fell burning, wings crackling as it hit stone.

  Ivarr stood behind her, frozen in place, watching her move like someone who had done this before. Like someone who trained for it, not someone stumbling through a cave by accident.

  His earlier excitement shifted into something sharper.

  Intrigue.

  A noble, he thought again, but the word no longer meant what it had a moment ago. An inventor for a father. Clearly intelligent. Can conjure weapons and fight like she knows how to kill.

  He swallowed, eyes narrowing as he watched her choose angles, control the space, keep Barrel safely at her side while still using him as pressure.

  “There’s more to this girl than being a simple noble,” he whispered, almost to himself.