Elias moved another step closer to Inari as the wall gave way. He didn’t want to lose momentum, didn’t want to risk some weird fail-safe that locked the hidden doorway into place if it fell shut by accident. He pushed with his hand, then with two hands after passing his light, map, and pen to Inari.

A space appeared, just large enough to fit a body.

“Light?” he asked, bracing the door open with his shoulder and hip. The door was built on some sort of leverage system, as far as he could tell, wedged into place by pressure on the tunnel at two strategic points.

He shone the beam into the darkness, grunting as the door naturally attempted to close on its own.

His light landed on crates. A whiskey barrel. A desk. Something covered in material at the opposite end. He couldn’t see every wall, every corner, without stepping inside. And if he did, if they did, and the stone door closed, would they be able to get out again? What if it only opened one way? He felt along the inside of the door for a handle.

Nothing. Instinct told him they would be stuck in there if the door accidentally closed. He had his radio, though, and there were things within to jam in between the door and the frame.

If the door didn’t crush the ancient crates, that is.

“What do you see? What is it?” Inari asked.

He could feel her trying to peer past his shoulder. “There are things in here. It’s a hidden room. I can’t see all of it without stepping inside, but this door only swings open one way, I think. A few of these protruding stones along the wall prevent it from opening outward, is my guess. Either I’ll have to go in alone, or we’ll have to brace something between the door and the wall. Or I can come back another time with my father and brother.”

“We’re not leaving until we check it out. I can hold the door long enough for you to find something we can brace it with.” She put her weight against the door near his hand.

“It’s heavy.”

“I see that. But I can hold it.”

“If the door closes and you can’t open it, just shout at me and I’ll radio the guards,” he said, and then stepped past into the room.

His flashlight beam bounced off more crates in another corner, a large wooden box, and five carved wooden chairs. He went straight to a stack of crates and discovered they were heavy when he tried to lift one. That indicated there were things inside.

Every crate he nudged or pushed at felt the same. The wood was so old and weatherworn that faint cracks and snaps reverberated through the room at the slightest provocation.

No way would one of these hold the door, even full of paraphernalia. The pressure would snap the wood like brittle chicken bones and possibly crush whatever was inside.

Dammit.

“Well?” Inari asked.

He could tell by her voice that the door was becoming heavier by the second.

“Going to have to come back, Inari. These crates are all but falling apart and won’t hold up as a brace. There are chairs, too, but I think they’ll snap like twigs. The door is just too heavy.”

“I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but we should call down a guard or two. They can help you carry things out, or take turns holding the door. Right? All they have to do is follow the blue chalk arrows to where we are. It shouldn’t take them that long. I mean—we’re already here, Elias. And I know you’re dying to go through this stuff,” she said.

Elias considered it. This was potentially a big find. Anything could be in those crates, from weapons to clothing to candelabra. Maybe books. Journals. Maps.

He snagged the handset from his pocket and radioed up top, giving instruction to send three of his men down. In the meantime, while they waited for backup, he decided to pry the lid off the long rectangular box and take a look inside. The thicker, heavier quality wood did not seem as fragile as that of the crates.

“You okay for a moment, Inari?” Elias asked.

“I’m good for another ten minutes then I’ll need a break.”

“I won’t need that long to get into this big box,” he replied. He used a tool from his pack to gently pry at a corner, loosening the old iron nails that gave way with a little persistent effort.

Once he’d loosened no less than eight nails around the perimeter, he stowed the tool and grasped the edge of the lid.

Swords and daggers. That’s what I’ll find in here, he thought. The box was long enough and wide enough to contain quite a few pieces of weaponry. Maybe armor or shields.

The lid slid to the side.

A hollow-eyed skull, mouth open, the flesh long decayed all the way to the bone, stared up from the depths. Not just the skull, he saw, but an entire skeleton lay within. The disgusting, musty scent of ancient death assaulted his senses as he lunged back and covered his nose with the edge of his shirt.

“Elias? What happened? What’s in there?” Inari asked. She’d poked her head past the door and had her body wedged halfway in.

“It’s a skeleton. For God’s sake, this isn’t a weapons crate. It’s a coffin.”

---

It’s a coffin. Elias’s words echoed off the walls of the room. Inari might not have believed him if he hadn’t looked so shocked. Hadn’t suddenly straightened away from the box. Of course, a thousand questions crowded her mind. A few slipped free.

“Why would someone leave a body down here? My God, is it one of your old kings? An ancestor? Is he—or she—clothed?”

“I do not recall an ancestor that’s gone missing. They’re all accounted for, as far as I know, in the royal cemetery here on the mainland. I don’t know who this is. Whatever clothes they’d been wearing are mere scraps now and unidentifiable. I think—wait.”

“Wait what? What is it?” Inari shone her flashlight onto Elias instead of the box. Not into his face but hip level so she didn’t blind him.

He reached into the coffin and, a moment later, pulled something out.

“I’ll be damned,” Elias said.

“I’m gonna come in there and make the guards find us if you don’t tell me what it is.”

“A dagger. Carved on the handle is the same crest I found on the last one. So that other dagger wasn’t just a one-off. The crest had been used a few times, probably more.” He turned the artifact over in his hand.

“So this person used that dagger while the other crest was being used by your family,” she said, following his line of thought. “Could it be—”

“Holy shit,” Elias said.

Inari had never heard Elias curse. Granted, she’d spent limited time in his company until the last month and a half, but still. She instinctively knew he must have discovered something outrageous. Before she could start making demands again, he abruptly turned toward the door, the dagger laid out on his open palm.

“Shine your light here,” he instructed as he drew within range.

Inari flashed her beam onto the dagger then onto the hilt where he gestured with his thumb.

The name carved into the metal was not what she expected to see. She gasped in shock as she tried desperately to put the pieces together. What did it mean? Inari glanced at Elias’s face and searched his eyes.

He looked as shocked as she felt.

This wasn’t a small find.

It was a potentially monumental, life-changing piece of history.