“Why am I with you?” Jayden asked. “Are you going to use me to trigger the booby traps?”

“Aren’t you the one who knows this place the best?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “You can point out anything that doesn’t look right.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“And you can trigger the traps,” she teased.

“Not funny.”

Shyla directed the group through a number of hallways of the dead. Their boots scraped on the rough stone floor. The air smelled of dust and abandonment. And that was another potential hazard—bad air. Gases might have built up in various pockets.

Aphra held the druk out in front of her, shining the light on every crack in the floor and walls. She paused often, holding up her free hand, stopping them. Once she crouched down and tapped the hilt of her knife on the floor. When nothing happened she straightened and continued.

The slow pace and the knowledge that a trap could spring at any moment created a tension so thick it tasted bitter on Shyla’s tongue. Only Jayden seemed unaffected, watching Aphra’s cautious movements with an amused disdain.

That was until she cried out and tackled him, knocking him down right before a sword shot out from the wall he’d just been standing next to.

“Scorching sand demons,” he said.

Aphra shushed him and they remained quiet. Shyla and the others stood frozen in place. Afraid to move, she noted Vashi had drawn her short sword.

“All clear,” Aphra said, rolling off Jayden.

He regained his feet, brushing the sand off his pants. “That happened so fast. How did you know?”

“I heard a click. These traps are old and many times there’s a delay. And sometimes they fail to trigger. Other times…”

“Other times?” Jayden helped Aphra to her feet.

“They skewer you without warning.”

He shuddered and scanned the walls. “When the Invisible Sword had their headquarters below, we hardly came up here, but I was certain there weren’t any traps left.”

Aphra glanced at Shyla. “We must be getting close.”

“A few more turns,” she said.

“Stay behind me,” Aphra ordered.

No one argued.

After a few angles and a half dozen more traps, which Aphra triggered so they weren’t surprised on the way out, they reached an empty hexagonal room. About four meters wide, it was smaller than Tamburah’s judgment chamber and a layer of loose sand covered the floor, but, instead of six doors, it had only one. The room was a dead end. Aphra checked it for traps as Shyla consulted the map, but it appeared they’d arrived at the area of Tamburah’s left eye.

“Now what?” Aphra asked after she declared it safe.