CHAPTER 65: [65] HEARTBEAT OF GREED

The tunnel eventually opened into a vast natural cavern that took their breath away. The ceiling vanished into shadow overhead. Below, a forest of stone pillars and arches rose from the cavern floor, their impossible geometry suggesting the work of a mad god.

Amber.

Not the small pieces found in Orellia’s commercial mines, but vast sheets of the fossilized resin that covered entire wall sections like golden glass. The lantern’s flame struck the amber and shattered, refracting into a thousand honey-colored shards of light. The warm glow threw the cavern’s breathtaking details into sharp relief.

"Sweet Mother of the Deep," Raven breathed, her voice filled with awe. "No wonder Moreau wants to control this place."

Embedded within the amber walls were the preserved remains of an ancient ecosystem: massive insects with wingspans measured in feet, flowering plants of species long extinct, and stranger things that defied easy categorization.

Pierre studied the fossilized specimens while his companions explored the chamber’s perimeter. Some of the creatures looked almost familiar, but wrong in subtle ways that made his inherited memories itch. The original Pierre’s childhood stories had mentioned things that lived in the Deep Caves, but he’d always assumed they were fairy tales.

"Over here," Alyssa called from the far side of the chamber. "There’s another passage, and it looks like it’s been recently excavated."

They regrouped at the passage entrance, which had been cut through solid amber with surgical precision. The walls of this new tunnel gleamed like liquid gold, perfectly smooth and reflecting their lantern light in ways that created the illusion of walking through molten fire.

The amber tunnel led to a circular chamber that made their previous discoveries seem modest by comparison. The room was perfectly spherical, its walls composed entirely of amber so pure and clear it might have been crystal. But at the chamber’s center stood something that defied explanation.

"What in the seven hells is that thing?" Raven whispered, her usual confidence shaken by the sight.

A pedestal of black volcanic glass supported a single piece of amber the size of a human torso. Within the golden prison, suspended in perfect preservation, was something that made Pierre’s blood run cold. It looked like a heart—not human, but close enough to be disturbing.

The organ pulsed with its own internal light, a slow, hypnotic rhythm that cast shifting patterns across the chamber walls.

Pierre didn’t need Alyssa’s analysis or Raven’s appraisal. He felt it.

The stolen darkness from Hardy, that parasitic seed inside him, began to thrum. It wasn’t just a response; it was a song, a hungry harmony with the power trapped in the amber. The sensation was intoxicating, a promise of power that made his mouth water and his stomach churn.

This, he realized, his voice a dry rasp when he finally spoke. "This is what Moreau’s been after. Not the amber... this thing."

Alyssa circled the pedestal, her hand hovering near the hilt of her riding crop. "It has to be worth millions. Maybe tens of millions. Something this unique, this ancient—there are collectors who’d bankrupt kingdoms for a chance to own it."

Images flooded his mind. A flagship, his flagship, with a crimson banner snapping in the wind. Raven’s sister, safe and whole, walking off a gangplank into the sun. Alyssa, standing on the deck of her own warship, a fleet of loyalists at her back.

And himself, looking a king in the eye and feeling nothing but the freedom to turn and walk away.

All he had to do was take it.

Pierre reached toward the amber prison, his fingers tingling as they approached the surface. The moment his skin made contact with the fossilized resin, the chamber erupted in brilliant light.

Hidden illumination crystals flared to life throughout the spherical room, banishing every shadow and revealing details they’d missed in the lantern’s dim glow. And the light revealed they were not alone.

From concealed alcoves carved into the walls, silent figures emerged. They were Black Serpent pirates, stepping from absolute darkness, their twin sabers already drawn.

A trap.

The easy descent, the unguarded prize, the intoxicating moment of triumph... it had all been bait. Now the light held them pinned like insects under glass, surrounded by predators who had been waiting for them to walk right in.

From the chamber’s entrance came the sound of slow, deliberate applause. Each clap echoed through the spherical space like a gunshot, building to a rhythm that spoke of supreme confidence and amusement.

Captain Lydia Moreau stepped into the light, her golden eyes glittering with triumph and something that might have been pity. Her black-scaled left arm caught the amber light, creating patterns that seemed to writhe across her skin like living serpents.

"Oh, you sweet, ambitious things," she said, her voice carrying the musical quality of wind chimes and the underlying threat of a blade being drawn from its sheath. "Did you really think I wouldn’t guard my most precious possession?"

They’d walked directly into her parlor, and she’d been waiting with tea and poisoned conversation ready.

"You’re so wonderfully predictable," Moreau continued, her smile holding the thin, venomous promise of a viper. "Desperate people always choose the obvious path when they believe cleverness will save them. But you see, my dear thieves, I’ve been playing this game far longer than you’ve been breathing."

The amber heart continued its hypnotic pulsing, casting shifting shadows that made the Black Serpent pirates look like demons emerging from the walls. Pierre’s hand still rested on the artifact’s surface, and he could feel its alien warmth seeping into his bones.

"Get on with it, Moreau," Raven snapped, her eyes like chips of ice. "Kill us. Or is gloating the only part of your plan?"

"Kill you?" Moreau’s laugh was like chimes in a graveyard.

"Darling, please. One doesn’t break their newest, shiniest toys the moment they take them out of the box. You see, I didn’t just need thieves. I needed desperate thieves. The boy who yearns for a throne of his own," she said, her golden eyes locking onto Pierre.

"The navigator willing to burn the world for her sister," she purred, turning to Raven. "I knew you’d find this place. I counted on it. You weren’t trying to outsmart me. You were auditions. And I must say, darlings... you’ve all passed."