The stench of burnt ozone and ancient damp settled over us like a wet blanket. Nobody moved for a solid minute, our ragged breathing the only sound echoing off the stone walls.
"My ribs," Vannak groaned, sprawled flat on his back, staring at the arched ceiling. "I think Nimol broke three of my ribs when she tackled me."
"You have all your ribs," Nimol gasped, leaning against the wall with her head between her knees, her shoulders heaving. "If I hadn't tackled you, you'd be a pile of ash right now. You owe me."
"I owe you a lifetime of nightmares," he muttered, but he didn't move away from her.
Neak slowly hauled himself up, wiping a fresh smudge of blood and dust across his forehead. He extended a broad, calloused hand toward me. I took it, and he hoisted me to my feet with a single, steady pull. He didn't let go immediately. His thumb pressed against the inside of my wrist, checking my pulse, anchoring me to the physical world.
"Solid," he grunted, giving my arm a brief, firm squeeze before letting go. "She's back."
I looked down at the stone floor. The dull brass fragments of the shattered ring lay scattered like dead beetle shells. The black lotus at my throat was completely gone, leaving only a faint, lingering heat where the petals had scorched my skin.
Vichea was already on his feet, dusting off his trousers and inspecting the wooden door. The golden glow of the carved lotus had vanished entirely, leaving behind raw, splintered grain that looked hundreds of years old.
"The seal is inert," Vichea said, tapping his knuckles against the wood. "It's just timber now. The mechanism burned out when the memory hit it." He turned back to Grandma, his expression unreadable. "Where does the rest of the path lead?"
Grandma didn't answer right away. She was standing a few feet back, staring at her right palm. The skin was reddened and blistered where she had held the burning lotus, but her expression remained stoic, forged from iron and decades of secrets.
"It leads forward," she said softly. Her voice carried a rare, subtle huskiness, though her posture remained unyielding. "The Hollowkin was only a scavenger. The true threshold of the Boran vault lies beyond the lower gallery."
"Wait," Vannak sat up abruptly, wincing. "Lower gallery? You mean there are more things down here?"
"This place was built during the reign of the third king," Grandma said, turning toward the dark archway at the far end of the corridor—the direction the Hollowkin had fled. "It was never meant to be a tomb. It was a vault for things the court couldn't destroy."
"Including whatever took your son?" Nimol asked quietly.
The air in the corridor seemed to freeze. Vannak shrank back slightly, and even Neak shifted his weight, jaw tight. It was a question none of us would have dared ask an hour ago.
Grandma paused. She looked at Nimol, then turned her dark, sharp eyes to me.
"The court made mistakes," Grandma said, each word deliberate, falling like stone on stone. "They believed power could be preserved by cutting away the parts of ourselves that bled. They thought if you erased a name, you erased the debt attached to it. They were wrong. The debt only waits in the dark, growing hungrier."
She took a step toward the archway, her footsteps echoing sharply.
"Sovan was the price of my pride fifty years ago," she continued, not looking back. "I tried to save him by hiding him where the dark couldn't find him. I built a cage and called it protection." She stopped at the edge of the darkness and looked over her shoulder at us. "I will not make that mistake with any of you."
Neak stepped up beside her, his wide shoulders blocking the draft coming from the abyss. "Then we finish this together. No cages."
"No cages," Vichea agreed, stepping into line.
Nimol pulled Vannak to his feet by his collar, though her touch was gentler than her tone. "Get up, cabbage farmer. We have a corridor to clear."
Vannak sighed deeply, adjusting his tunic, but his chin lifted. "If we die down here, I'm haunting all of you."
I took my place in the center of the formation, right where I belonged. My throat was bare, my finger was light, and for the first time since the ring had cinched itself onto my hand, my mind belonged entirely to me.
"Vichea, lead," Grandma commanded, her voice ringing with absolute authority once more. "Neak, vanguard. Nimol, watch our shadow. We move in three-step intervals."
We fell into stride, our boots striking the stone in unison. As we stepped through the archway and into the deep, breathing dark of the lower gallery, the silence of the vault rose to meet us—but this time, we didn't walk as survivors running from the dark.
We walked as a family, holding the line.