"I don't KNOW what happened," Sirius spat. "It was too fast and I was distracted. But I KNOW this started because YOU couldn't wait. Because YOUR impatience and YOUR ambition put us all in this situation."

"I did it for the family! For THIS!" Orion gestured at the open door with the kind of desperate justification people used when they knew they were wrong but couldn't admit it. "For what our ancestors left behind!"

"And was it WORTH it, you idiot?" Sirius's voice broke on the words, grief overwhelming anger temporarily. "Was it worth Lykea? Worth Lyzea? Worth destroying our families for whatever secrets are down there?"

Orion looked at the black heart in his hand, then at where Lyzea's statue had been, then at the place where the hole in the ground had been, where she'd descended beyond reach. The progression of his gaze tracking the stages of loss that couldn't be reversed.

"No," he admitted finally, the word coming out like a confession torn from someone who'd held it back as long as possible. "Maybe I committed the worst error of my life..."

He took a deep breath, steadying himself with visible effort.

"But the statues descended… Yes, they went down. That means there's something deeper!"

He clutched the crystal tighter.

"If they're down there, deeper in the ruins... if we put the hearts back on them, maybe..."

"Maybe there's still hope," Sirius completed, looking at the white crystal in his own hand with an expression that mixed desperate longing with the realistic assessment of terrible odds. "Maybe we can reverse this."

It was a thin hope, almost nonexistent when examined rationally. The kind of desperate grasping at possibilities that people did when the alternative was accepting the permanent loss of everything that mattered.

But it was hope, and when you'd lost so much, even impossible hope was better than acceptance.

"But we're exhausted now," Orion said, evaluating their condition like someone trying to think tactically when emotions demanded reckless action. His mana was nearly empty, his body screaming in protest from overexertion. "Going down now is suicide."

"I know." Sirius paused, internal war visible on his face between the pragmatic caution of not leaving Luna without a father and the desperate need of rescuing his beloved wife. "But if I wait, if that takes away the possibility of saving her..."

Both knew the hope was minimal, that waiting increased chances of survival… but if it might mean losing whatever slim chance existed for restoration.

The impossible calculation of risk versus reward when both options led toward probable disaster.

"I'm going down," Sirius declared with a finality that suggested no argument would change his mind. "With or without help."

Because desperation was stronger than reason, and love made people do stupidly brave things even when they knew better.

Orion observed him for a long moment, something complicated passing through his expression.

"Then I'm coming with you."

"Out of greed? To make sure you get a share of whatever we find?"

"Maybe," Orion admitted with brutal honesty that maybe was easier than examining his actual motivations. "Or because letting you go alone after this happened because of my fault..."

He stopped, unable or unwilling to complete the thought.

Sirius wanted to hate him completely, wanted to assign all blame to his brother and wash his own hands of responsibility. It would have been simpler, cleaner, easier to process than the messy reality of shared fault and complicated emotions.

But seeing the same pain in Orion's eyes, recognizing grief that mirrored his own a little even if its source was partially self-inflicted...

"Then let's go down."

And they began descending toward the newly opened tunnel with the left soldiers following behind, all of them understanding this was probably suicide but unable to stop now that momentum had carried them this far.

Sirius clutched Lykea's crystallized heart against his chest like talisman or prayer or promise that he'd find a way to fix this even if fixing it was impossible.

FIRST CHAMBER

The stairs were ancient beyond imagining, stone that hadn't been touched in centuries showing patterns from builders long dead. Each step took them deeper into darkness that felt deliberate rather than natural, farther from light and closer to whatever waited in depths that had been sealed for unknown reasons.

The first chamber was small and empty except for a pedestal in the center, its simple construction somehow more ominous than elaborate traps would have been.

Resting on it was a small artifact, a brilliant crystal shaped like a spiral that caught ambient light and refracted it into patterns that hurt to try to understand.

Sirius examined it with the careful attention of someone who'd learned that ancient ruins punished carelessness. "A simple key... High quality though."

He took it and they continued toward the next challenge.

SECOND CHAMBER

They had to use the simple key, circulating a small amount of mana to open this door…

This chamber was larger, with murals covering the walls showing scenes that time had blurred into barely recognizable shapes. Figures doing something important that context had been lost for, frozen in stone as warning or instruction that no longer carried meaning.

Two pedestals this time holding mana concealment artifacts that would be valuable rewards under normal circumstances but felt like consolation prizes given what they'd already paid.

Here they also encountered the first spirit, a being of pure light that appeared translucent and glowing softly with power that registered as mid-Silver rank. Not threatening to Gold-rank tamers under normal conditions, but these weren't normal conditions.

Sirius's Celestial White Tiger didn't have mana left for elaborate abilities but tore through the spirit with concentrated light claws. The spirit dissolved into motes that scattered like disturbed fireflies before fading completely.

They returned to the pedestals, claimed the artifacts, and continued downward because stopping meant thinking and thinking meant feeling and feeling might break what little composure they'd managed to maintain.

FOURTH CHAMBER

Two spirits manifested here, one of light and one of darkness in perfect opposition. Both registering as high Silver in power, enough to be dangerous to exhausted tamers but still manageable.

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