"How many chambers has it been?" Juan's voice bounced miserably off the damp stone walls.
"Twenty-three," Matteo answered dryly without looking back. His bow was slung low, shoulders tense.
Juan groaned so loudly it echoed like a dying beast. "Twenty-three. Do you hear that? Twenty-three rooms of spikes, traps, fire puzzles, and oh—let's not forget the charming acid pit. Why don't we just move in? We've practically earned residency!"
Ino rolled his eyes. "If you spent half the energy you use complaining on training, you'd already be a Warden."
"Wrong," Juan shot back instantly, lifting a finger. "If I spent that much energy training, I'd be dead already. It's called strategic conservation of resources."
Even Lucien's lips twitched beneath the mask. The truth was, Juan's complaints kept them from going mad in the endless gloom. Every chamber they passed through felt like another world—a labyrinth of the Vatican's buried sins. And still Aurelius walked ahead of them without pause, as if he had memorized every twist of the stone veins centuries ago.
Finally, they entered a hall larger than any before. The air was heavy with incense and rot, the torches along the walls burning with unnatural green flame. At the far end, resting on a pedestal of black marble, sat the object they had been chasing all this time.
The Mask of Saint Cyprian.
It wasn't gold or silver, not jeweled like one would expect. It was bone-white, cracked, and eerily human in its shape. The hollow eye sockets seemed to follow them as they stepped closer, and a thin mist seeped from the edges, curling like smoke across the floor.
Juan crossed his arms, glaring at it. "So this is what we nearly got skewered, drowned, burned, and possibly poisoned for? A creepy carnival mask?"
"Silence," Aurelius commanded sharply. His tone carried weight that hushed even Juan. "This is no trinket. This mask once bound saints and sorcerers alike. With it, Cyprian defied demons for thirty years until the Devil himself stepped in."