"Mana stress lines?" she muttered. "Or just wear?"
She couldn't be sure. But when she chose her path, she found herself avoiding the places where the lines clustered, stepping instead where the stone looked untouched.
She didn't know that the faint marks were left where something else had walked in careful patterns. To her, they were just another datum.
She descended to the next terrace along a narrow switchback.
The first trap found her there.
The terrace was covered in square tiles, each about the size of her boot. Some were cracked, others pristine. A faint flicker of light moved beneath the surface of a few.
Rhaen stopped at the edge.
"Of course," she sighed.
She drew a coin from her pouch and whispered a small chant, infusing it with a flicker of mana.
Then she tossed it onto the tiles.
It landed, bounced once—and vanished.
Half a heartbeat later, a spike of concentrated light shot up where it had been, punching into the air and then fading.
Rhaen raised an eyebrow.
