Chapter 3
The chamber breathes.
That's the first thing I notice. The walls seem to shift, just slightly—expanding, contracting—like lungs exhaling dust after centuries of silence. My boots leave faint prints in the layer of ash coating the floor. No footprints before mine.
No one's been here in a long time.
And yet... it feels like something has been waiting.
At the heart of the chamber is a pedestal, half-swallowed by the stone floor. Upon it floats a shard. That's the only word I can think of. Not a crystal. Not a machine. A shard—a jagged piece of something ancient, gleaming with a light that pulses like a heartbeat.
Red.
Not bright. Not warm. A deep, viscous red—like blood under moonlight.
I should turn back. Every part of me knows that. Whatever this place is, it's not part of the Games. The hunters wouldn't come here. This isn't their kind of playground.
And yet, I step forward.
The shard calls to something in me. Not my mind. Not even my soul. Deeper. A part of myself I forgot I had. Rage, maybe. The part that remembers chains. The part that refused to beg when the whip cracked. The part that never screamed.
I reach out.