The rope bridge swayed violently as Mara crossed the chasm, the roar of the waterfall accompanying her every step like a thunderous warning. Below, white water crashed against ancient stone. Above, storm clouds gathered.
She had followed the map for three weeks. Now the cave entrance gaped before her, dark and waiting.
Inside, she found the mechanism — a massive stone wheel blocking the inner chamber. She gripped the iron handle and threw her weight against it. The torque required was enormous, her boots scraping the floor as she strained, muscles burning, until finally the stone groaned and rolled aside.
What lay beyond took her breath away.
Gold coins, jeweled crowns, carved ivory figurines — a hoard accumulated over centuries, stacked floor to ceiling in a chamber the size of a cathedral. The legendary treasure of the Valdris kings, lost for four hundred years.
Mara pressed her hand against a cold gold chalice and thought of the dying village she had passed through on her journey. The fever had taken half their children. The other half were starving.
She loaded her pack — not with gold bars or gem-studded crowns, but with small coins. Enough to buy medicine. Enough to buy grain.
A different kind of adventurer might have taken everything. But Mara believed that true humanity meant knowing that treasure left uncirculated was just weight and silence. Wealth that saved no one was no treasure at all.
She crossed the bridge again, this time moving toward the valley, toward the village, toward the people who needed her.
The waterfall roared its approval behind her.