The Luna Queen's Rebirth (Ellie and Dominic) novel Chapter 480

Chapter 480

Ellie’s POV

Dominic scrambled out of the offshoot still stuffing one foot into his boot, his shirt untucked and his hair a wreck. I followed behind.

Bastian snapped his head up when we entered the chamber, both breathless and wild-eyed.

“A heartbeat,” Dominic said. “That’s the answer.”

Bastian quirked a brow.

“Think about it.” Dominic crossed the chamber and pressed his hand flat against the stone beneath the carved lines. “We tried talking, singing, dancing, but that didn’t work-because the stone stays deaf to every tongue. We tried blood, but that didn’t work, either. The dead have too much of it. What’s one thing that no dead person ever has?”

“A pulse,” Bastian said, rising.

“Exactly.”

“How did you even figure that out?” Bastian asked.

“Inspiration,” Dominic said, winking at me. I flushed and shook my head, rolling my eyes.

I stepped up to the slab before either of them could volunteer. It was my family’s crest carved into that arch, my ancestors who had sealed whatever was waiting on the other side, and if the mountain wanted a heartbeat, I figured it would probably want mine the most.

I’d tried my hand before, but maybe that wasn’t enough. This time, I pressed myself flat against the door, chest to stone, and spread my hands out on either side of the crest. The slab was cold through my sweater, and I felt little ridiculous, but I shut my eyes and breathed, focusing on my heartbeat.

Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.

The stone hummed, low and resonant, as if coming to life. I felt the coolness of it suddenly turn faintly warm, then warmer still, pulsing in tandem with my heartbeat.

I stumbled back into Dominic’s arms as the slab shuddered, sank into its frame, and swung slowly inward. Stale air rolled out over us, smelling like earth.

Beyond it, our headlamps found a curved set of stairs descending into the mountain.

stone.

Gathering our things, we stepped through the door, scanning the chamber beyond. It wasn’t a natural cave anymore, but rather something man-made; the walls cut and fitted, wave patterns running along both sides and the constellation from the ruins repeating overhead. The stairs went down further than our lights could reach.

Bastian looked at me. Then Dominic. I shrugged. We becan to descend.

The further we went, the more tunnels we found. Passages branching off into passages, some built directly into the wall in spots we couldn’t reach from the stairs, others at various landings, leading to small chambers that may have once been used for all kinds of purposes.

The woman at the museum was going to have a field day when we told her about this. I made a mental note to send a very detailed email to Edmund as well when we got back.

At the bottom, we found ourselves in a gallery of several passages leading out in various directions. Bastian stood in the middle of it and turned in a slow circle, his headlamp sweeping across carvings nobody had laid eyes on in centuries.

The sound of the water-it was definitely water I realized now, as we were too far to hear the wind fro mthe mountain peak at this point-was coming from the passage directly ahead of us, so we decided to follow that. It was the best plan any of us had. Bastian took the front, tapping his ice axe occasionally against the stone, just like he’d done on the glacier.

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