Prologue

"It"s here, just here!"

Karim Fayez stumbled at the unexpected shout, catching his palm painfully on the sharp rocks that jutted from the stone at the cave entrance. Waves crashed against the shore behind them, tossing their small rowboat like a toy in bathwater. With a souring stomach, he watched an oar jostle loose from the mount and tumble into the sea, sinking into the blue depths.

That would certainly make the return trip more difficult.

"Are you looking at the map correctly, Soren?" an amused second voice called from behind Karim. "Captain won"t be happy if we come back empty-handed again."

No, Captain wouldn"t be happy if they came back empty-handed again. The sore thrashes on Karim"s back from the flogging he took just weeks ago still stretched painfully with every step forward. Despite this, Karim could imagine Soren"s dark face scowling as he looked down to scour the worn map for the twentieth time that day.

"Don"t be ridiculous, Draven," Soren retorted, his echoing voice clearing as Karim navigated further from the cave"s entrance. "I know how to read a map."

Karim jolted as Draven plopped a heavy hand on his shoulder. When Draven brushed past, the touch was both unwelcome and unanticipated. Karim didn"t feel right in this cave. Though he was sure they were alone, he couldn"t shake the feeling that he was being watched…and he was being watched closely. Was it the stone walls themselves? Perhaps the lichen that lined the rock or the uninhabited tide pools beneath his feet?

No, that was ridiculous.

Karim shook his head, surging into the darkness after Draven and Soren, following the dim flicker of light from the torch Soren held high above his head. The air grew increasingly stale as the minutes passed, the salty smell of the sea replaced by the stinging scent of mold and boggy water. It was quiet, too. Soren"s heavy boot steps nearly drowned out the steady drip, drip, drip from the water leaking down the stone.

A chill went up Karim"s spine, tenting the hairs on his neck. "I think we should return to the boat…?" he began slowly, and he hated the wavering tone his voice had taken on. He would gladly take another beating if it meant leaving the confines of the island at that very moment.

Unfortunately, the other two men also heard his trepidation.

"Where"s your sense of adventure?" Draven boisterously asked. The question was followed by a snort that echoed off the wet walls.

"It left," Karim replied as he stepped into a puddle, water flooding the inside of his boot, "six caves ago." His sole squelched when he took another step forward, and the sound was like a cannon blast in the darkness. "I"m starting to have doubts this cave is even real."

The three men had been hunting for the cave on the map for over nine months. Nine months of sailing on The Midnight Mariner alongside Captain Nasir Al-Mahdi, the notoriously cruel corsair and one who reveled in laying down tar-covered leather straps on the backs of his men. Nine months of rationing food, guzzling bad fion, and working under the sun"s heat, nearly going blind when it reflected off the cresting waves.

Karim hated it, hated every second of it. But Soren and Draven pushed him through, reminding him almost daily of the treasure at the end of it all. Captain Nasir wanted the Luminaria; they could take everything else.

"It"s real," Draven clucked, ducking his head to avoid a low-hanging stalactite. "I overheard it from a merchant who overheard it from a—"

"A concubine who overheard it from a patron who overheard it from a priest at Liddros"s temple in Sha"hadra," Karim finished for him. "And as I"ve said many times, that"s not a promising start." He paused to sweep his black hair from his eyes, using his cold sweat to slick it back against the crown of his head. "We don"t even know if that damn map is real."

"That," Soren interjected as he shifted to the side, shuffling through a crevice in the stone, "I can attest to. The map is as old as the temple priests say that it is. Its markings have not been used in the last five centuries."

Karim clamped his lips shut. Soren would know if the map was real, after all. He was the best cartographer on the continent, bought and paid for by the king. And Draven…well, Draven was the best thief on the continent. Soren bought and paid for him to steal said map.

Karim, on the other hand, was a friend of a friend who always wanted to go on an adventure and never thought that adventure would lead him to Captain Nasir Al-Mahdi— or his tarred leather whip. Draven was sure that the Luminaria required a virgin"s hand to retrieve it, and while Karim never had the pleasure of sticking his cock in a woman, retrieving a magical gemstone was something he could do.

"Just think of all the cunts you"ll be able to have once this is all over," Draven mused as they moved further into the cave. Karim glanced behind him, his muscles stiffening when he realized how far behind the entrance was. "You can flash your golden chalice or your ring made of pure silver at them and—"

"Quiet," Soren whispered, his tone suddenly throaty and harsh. He was louder now, and, in their bickering, Karim hadn"t realized Soren had stopped walking. "Do you hear that?"

The three men were silent, waiting with bated breath for anything to make a noise. Karim watched the shadow from the torch"s flame dance against the stone, casting long lines of black that reminded him of the fabled monsters his mother used to tell him about when he was a child. Just as he was about to open his mouth and ask what they were waiting for…he heard it.

It started as a whisper, a summoning, that skittered over his bones and pebbled his flesh. It was soft, cunning, and haunting, and…Karim had the sudden urge to flee, but his feet kept him rooted in place. The whispers were beckoning him, drawing him in, pleading for him to come closer, come see…

"It"s here," Soren said with such finality that it snapped Karim from his thoughts. Soren swept the torch above his head, illuminating a crude serpent carving wrapped around a jagged staff. His head darted down and back up before dropping again, comparing the serpent to the one on the map. "Draven, dagger."

Draven didn"t hesitate to yank his dagger from his belt and open his palm, sliding the sharpened blade against the curve of his hand. His flesh split, a river of blood pooling in the seams of his fingers and spilling onto the rock beneath him. Karim"s belly twisted at the sight.

A slap sounded, followed by a sickening wet drag against the stone as Draven wiped the blood from his hand onto the carved serpent. He tugged his scarf from his head, wrapping it around his palm and tying the knot closed with his teeth. Soren didn"t bother looking at Draven; instead, he kept his stare on the wall.

A minute ticked by, then two, then three. Karim didn"t know when he had started to wring his hands, only being alerted when his knuckles ground against one another. He let out a long, low breath that curled in a fog before his face.

That wasn"t right. It was the middle of the warm season, and even in the cave"s confines, he shouldn"t have been able to see his breath. The temperature plummeted again, and the air suddenly became frigid, as though the rocks had turned to ice. Karim glanced toward the torch, the flame jarring violently against a phantom wind before it snuffed out, pitching them into complete darkness.

The three men went silent, breaths heavy against the black surrounding them.

The cave began to shake, the earth quaking so terribly beneath Karim"s feet that his knees knocked together, and his teeth painfully chattered. He threw a hand out, attempting to steady himself against the wall, but only felt the cold, moist air against his fingers. Next to him, one of the men stumbled and fell, landing with a sharp oof and a splash into a pool of water. The shaking stopped just as suddenly as it started, and something small scrambled over the toe of Karim"s boot. As if it, too, wanted to get away from what lived beyond the wall.

A grating of stone against stone sounded as a hidden door slid up, revealing a passage bathed in the moonlight shining through the deep cracks in the ceiling. Soren, who was the one to have fallen, pushed himself from the puddle and adjusted his spectacles back into place.

"This is—" Draven began, unabashedly staring at the sight before him.

Terrifying? Uneasy? Worrisome? Karim had a host of words to use instead of what Draven finished with.

"Unbelievable." Draven stepped over the threshold of the stone door, pushing past Soren to enter the passage. It was narrow enough that Draven"s broad shoulders brushed each side. The smell wafting from inside of it was stagnant, as though the door had been sealed for a very long time. "What are you chaps waiting for?"

Soren entered the passage next, his slim figure fitting easily within the space, the map still clutched tightly in his hand. His head swiveled in every direction as he tried to take in every nook and cranny. Karim took a deep breath and swallowed hard, the act difficult against the dryness of his throat.

He could…wait here? No, they needed him if the Luminaria was indeed in this cave. Maybe they could call him when they found it? But what if they were too far away? The argument bobbed back and forth in his mind until he finally pitched forward and followed the other two men into the passage.

The air was heavy and eerily charged, and that feeling of being watched only intensified with every step Karim took. He glanced over his shoulder, half expecting to see someone standing there, but he was only met with darkness. Soren"s torch lay haphazardly on the ground, half hidden in shadow. He shook it off despite the prickling over his skin.

The passage turned upward, leaving Karim short of breath and gasping when he reached the apex. Sweat dripped between his shoulder blades, sliding down his spine and settling uncomfortably into the waistband of his pants. Concubines, fion, rings made of silver and gold, enough coin to last four generations… He said the words like a mantra, thinking them repeatedly as they ventured farther down.

And that mantra kept him going, enough that he ran directly into Soren"s back when the man had stopped abruptly. Karim opened his mouth to inquire, but his words were lost as he peered around Draven"s upper arm.

They had come to a chamber, the walls towering above them and curving in one smooth motion into the sweeping stone ceiling. The chamber was fit for the king"s palace, large enough that Karim was sure one could fit an entire village inside…and then some. But that wasn"t what caught his eye.

It was the treasure.

Piles of gold bars, coins made of silver and copper, and gemstones of all colors and sizes littered the ground. Treasure stacked in mounds taller than Draven, overflowing into the water pooling along the hall"s edges. Marble statues, golden chests filled with crowns and pearls, necklaces embedded with sapphires. Karim drank it in, his eyes flitting over the piles and piles of riches.

It was here. It was real. Karim was wealthy. Wealthy didn"t even begin to cover it. He could dig himself out of debt, out of poverty, away from stealing. He could buy the whole fucking kingdom if he wanted to.

Draven let out a whoop and raced into the hall, skidding to a halt in front of the first pile of coins. He reached down and began to stuff handfuls into the pockets of his pants and the gaps of his boots. He laughed as he shuffled past, his breeches already weighed down under the amount he had taken, and picked up a necklace, slinging it over his head—the large emerald clunked against his chest.

Soren had also moved forward, kneeling to study the inscriptions on the coins at his feet. "This must be thousands of years old," he murmured, glancing over the rim of his spectacles for a better look. "Never in my studies…" He trailed off, his mouth remaining open as he fixed his stare on the coins.

"Fuck the Luminaria, and fuck the captain who wants it!" Draven said from the other end of the chamber.

Karim looked over to him. Draven had placed a crown on his head and threaded two more around each arm as bracelets. He then wound six more gleaming pieces of jewelry around his neck.

"And how would we return to shore?" Soren asked, not taking his eyes from the two coins he had lifted into the air, comparing them side by side. "We"re in an archipelago at least a ten-day sail from the nearest port."

"There"s no way The Midnight Mariner will be able to come any closer than where she"s anchored," Draven replied, ignoring the question posed by Soren as he grabbed a chalice from the nearest mound, tossed it in the air, and then caught it. "We could slip from the island, use a stack of coins to hire our crew, and come back to claim the rest. Alerting the captain now will only alert the crew, which means we have to split this—" He paused to stretch his arms out wide. "—With fifty other men."

Karim had half a mind to agree. They had deciphered the map, spent months on board the ship with the insufferable Captain Nasir Al-Mahdi, andknew which gods-forsaken island this cave was on. Who were the crew to claim any of this?

"Let"s give the Luminaria to the captain," Karim said, glancing between Draven and Soren. "We should bring just enough coins back to hire another ship upon our return to the nearest port. Tell the captain that there was no treasure, only the stone. The crew would be none the wiser, and the captain would be satisfied with our discovery."

Soren nodded as Draven heaved a sigh.

"Fine," Draven said, letting the crowns slide from his wrists and clatter to the stone floor. "But where will we find the Luminaria in all of this?"

Karim went quiet, looking around the chamber. Draven was right. It would take months, possibly years, to sift through everything here.

"There," Soren said, angling his head in gesture. "The doorway."

Karim slid his gaze toward Soren"s head tilt, his eyes locking on the doorway at the other end. It was tiny, easily overlooked in the grand scheme of the chamber. Karim walked toward it, passing the seemingly never-ending mountains of coins as he went. He bent down and snagged a single one from the side of the nearest pile, pocketing it before continuing. Behind him, Draven chuckled.

"Couldn"t help yourself, could you, boy?"

Karim ignored him.

His walk slowed as he approached the doorway. That feeling of being watched returned, ghosting over the back of his neck and boring like a plague into his spirit. It"s just Draven and Soren, he told himself as he crossed the threshold. He couldn"t quite bring himself to believe it.

The second room was dark, lit only by a single shaft of moonlight beaming down from the ceiling. That light, though narrow, was bright enough to illuminate the space and a set of torches. A deep pool of water divided the room, splitting the floor into two peninsulas and conjoined by a slim walkway. There was nothing in the room— no piles of gold, coins, or jewels—except for a single pedestal made of jagged rock on the opposite peninsula. And there, on that pedestal, was a single ruby gemstone.

Karim felt a lightness in his chest that hadn"t been there a moment prior, and a sudden rush of adrenaline flooded his body, spurring him on. He crossed the narrow path, one foot in front of the other, and didn"t dare look into the inky black water on either side of him. It was still as glass, perfectly reflecting the ceiling far above him. He didn"t pay too much attention to that either.

As he approached the pedestal, his breath caught in his throat, and his gaze fastened on the gemstone. It was smaller than he expected, one that could easily fit in the palm of his hand. It was also expertly cut, as though a professional jeweler had crafted it himself. Karim reached a hand forward, allowing it to float just above the ruby. He stopped just short of grabbing it, suddenly frozen in place.

There was an exhale behind him, and that breath tickled the back of Karim"s head and up to the shell of his ear.

Do you believe yourself worthy?A ghostly voice asked. That same hauntingly eerie whisper that drew them deeper into the cave in the first place. Karim"s extended hand trembled, and his legs tightened, readying for him to run, but he was rooted in place, unable to move. Fear churned his guts into water, his heartbeat loud in his ears.

"Aye, Karim!" Draven called from the chamber, his voice ricocheting in a sharp echo against the stone ceiling. "Is it there? Did you find the Luminaria?"

Draven"s shout broke Karim from his stupor, and before he could change his mind, he reached down and grabbed the stone.

For a long minute, nothing happened. Karim was about to place the stone in his pocket when an ear-piercing shriek had him whipping around to face the doorway to the hall. The once serene pools had begun to rumble, displacing the water onto the stone pathway and gurgling up to wash over his boots. As though an invisible hand tore it from his grasp, Karim dropped the stone and it was washed away by a sudden wave.

Karim rushed over the stone pathway, splashing through the water now nearing mid-calf, and waded toward the chamber. He slowed as he approached the threshold, gaping as he watched the water bounce against the doorway as though hitting a barrier. Lifting his eyes, he caught sight of something that made him stop in his tracks completely.

Using razor-sharp claws, humanoid corpses had clawed from the ground. Gray, weathered bodies with hollow eyes that seemed to glow despite the dim light. While each was in a different stage of decomposition, ranging from wholly emaciated and mummified to fleshy and rotten, they all had the same unsettling expression: hunger. And the shriek? That had been poor Soren, who was now laying wide-eyed and unseeing with his gut split open, two creatures covered in his blood as they feasted.

The map lay on the ground just at his fingertips.

The water had risen to Karim"s waist in his delay to leave, and he realized he had two choices. He could stay in this room and drown, sooner rather than later, or face the creatures wandering the hall.

But Karim had one final secret in his pocket.

There was something Soren and Draven didn"t know about Karim, something he had kept to himself. Something he had to remember through the jumbled mess that was his brain after watching those…things. He had to swallow the bile rising in his throat. He couldn"t die like Soren had. He wouldn"t allow it.

Karim had grown up in Sha"Hadra, the bustling desert city of the continent and the only major one that didn"t connect directly to a seaport. Sha"Hadra was known for two things.

Well, three things.

One, they had the best spices on the continent. Spices that could be added to chicken or lamb, making any dish aromatic and decadent. The spices held up the infamous Sha"Hadra marketplace and were regularly exported to the capital, Mistral Bay.

Two, Sha"Hadra was rich in history and culture. Traditional art, music, and literature, each a distinct and vibrant form that drew tourists from every city on the continent.

The third, and the unofficial, was that Sha"Hadra had the highest number of guards out of all the cities on the continent. Guards dispatched from the capital on the king"s orders spent their time targeting the native children of Sha"Hadra, chasing them away from the marketplace. The children who were fast enough were the ones to get away. The children who weren"t…they didn"t last long in Sha"Hadra.

Karim had been one of those children who got away.

Karim took off as the water crested over his shoulders, leaving the confines of the flooded room and entering the ring of creatures. To his right, he spotted Draven fighting for his life, his dagger drawn and swinging wildly. It caught the nearest creature in the chest, slicing the leathered skin open to reveal the ribcage underneath.

"Karim! Karim!" Draven shouted as he stepped back and tripped over the crown that had fallen off his head. One of the creatures lunged forward, pinning him to the pile of treasure beneath him.

"I"m sorry, Draven!" Karim called back, jostling to the side to slide past a creature who had lurched for him, claws outstretched. He locked his eyes on the map next to Soren"s dismantled body. "Every chap for himself."

"You traitor!" Draven screamed, followed by a sharp cry as a creature dug its claws into his leg. "Karim! Karim!"

Karim sprinted, bending at the waist as he passed Soren to snatch the map. The two creatures didn"t flinch as he fled, their faces still buried deep in the dead man"s gut. He side-stepped around another creature, then another, their claws outstretched, and their yellowing teeth bared as he ran toward the passage back to the cave.

"Karim! Ka—" Draven"s shout was cut silent, a wet, sickening garble in its place.

Karim crossed the threshold of the passageway, his shoulder knocking into the stone as he avoided the final creature in his way. It bounced off an invisible barrier, similar to the water in the Luminaria"s chamber, and let out a monstrous roar at its loss for a fresh meal. The smell of its breath was stomach-turningly rancid.

He followed the moonlit passage back to the cave, relieved to find the open door. He kept up a brisk pace, using his left hand to follow the cave"s wall to the entrance. Behind him, stone on stone ground together as the door to the chamber slid closed, trapping the bodies of his former colleagues inside.

But Karim had the map, the parchment still clutched in his hand, and he had a single coin. It might be enough to buy him passage aboard another ship. Now, he needed to find a captain willing to take him.