The chamber's collapse slowed, then stopped, as if the structure itself was holding its breath. Selena lay in Dante's arms, her breathing shallow and ragged, the shattered remnants of the heart of bone sending lances of agony through her chest with each heartbeat. But she was still breathing. Still conscious. Still alive, if only barely.
Through the haze of pain, she became aware of something new in the chamber—a presence that had revealed itself with the Watcher's destruction. At the center of the room, where the ghost had imploded, a pedestal rose from the stone floor. It emerged slowly, grinding upward with the sound of ancient mechanisms awakening after centuries of silence. The stone was black as midnight, carved with symbols that seemed to writhe and shift when looked at directly.
And upon that pedestal sat a crown.
