"Then we go get him," Gad said, already rising. "Now, before that seal finishes weakening."
"You just opened your palm to that altar hours ago," Mira said, grabbing his arm. "You're exhausted, injured, and the outpost is a full day's travel from here even moving fast."
"Then we would move faster."
"Wait." Bellan held up a hand, voice tight with focus. "Before either of you runs anywhere, there's something else here I haven't finished. A section separate from everything the entity has told us, hidden deliberately away from its influence."
Gad forced himself to still. "What do you mean by separate?"
Bellan moved to the far wall of the chamber, brushing away decades of dust from a section of stone that had gone unnoticed until now, tucked behind the altar itself, out of the entity's dire
