Atlas

The tunnels were cold.

They stretched beneath the citadel like veins beneath skin, dark and narrow and ancient. Atlas had walked them before—had mapped them, memorized them, used them when the kingdom was at war. But tonight, they felt different. Darker. More threatening.

Orion walked beside him, his footsteps silent, his eyes scanning the shadows. He had always been the sharper of the two—the one who noticed things, who saw patterns, who could read the darkness like a ...