The downside to being on the opposite end of the Vault doors was that Ki had trouble reading Na’s expression from a distance. He had always been the quiet type, but now, his silence had grown eerie. Ti seemed to welcome it, she had always preferred the quiet. She claimed chatter was distracting from her duty.

  Ki hated the silence. It sent chills travelling down her spine. It wound its way around her heart. It dragged out the worst of her thoughts. Though she wanted to ignore her suspicions and focus on her task at hand, Na’s unnatural silence prevented her from success. 

  He had promised to wait for her--to work with her--but she had always known Na to be a bit rash under pressure.

  From his constant fidgeting with his shoulder to his shifting feet, she knew he was almost at that point. The breaking point.

  She hadn’t anticipated that he would act so quickly.

  “Ti?” Na pushed himself away from the door, the tip of his spear touching the ground as the weight of it shifted in his hand. 

  The older girl turned to him, one brow raised in question as she looked him up and down. Her lips pressed into a thin line, a firm frown that formed a crease between her brows. Finally, when the silence had stretched long enough, she said, “If your shoulder is bothering you again, talk to Ki. I don’t have anything to help you.”

  “Do you know what’s inside the Vault, Ti?”

  Ti, usually calm and composed, froze at the suddenness of his question. Even Ki blinked in surprise, drawing her spear closer to her chest as if the weapon could bring her comfort. She shook her head, her brow furrowed, desperately trying to deter Na away from the questions. Unlike Ki, who welcomed their shared bewilderment of the dream-like sensation of the Vault, Ti had never seemed to care much for the truth of the Vault. Ki doubted it was because she was ignorant; Ti was too sharp for that.

  However, if it wasn’t ignorance, what grounded Ti in their task when the other two faltered?

  Puzzled, Ki narrowed her eyes at Na. Where was he trying to go? What was he trying to learn? What did he see that Ki didn’t?

  Ti shifted her spear, twirling it gracefully in her fingers until the head clashed against the floor. Ki flinched back. 

  “Why does it matter?” Ti asked, her voice icy. “The Master has told you all you need to know.”

  Na touched his shoulder again, no doubt pricked by pain as his questions resurfaced. “I’ve been thinking. Every thief that’s ever come in here, every intruder we’ve ever stopped, they’ve all said the same thing. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing.’ ‘None of you know anything.’ ‘I need to see the Vault.’ You’ve heard them, you know what I mean.”

  Ti shot him a cold glare. “What of it?”

  Na gave a humorless, bitter laugh, curling his fingers tighter around his shoulder. “They’re all right. I don’t know anything, I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t even know what the Vault is aside from a gigantic set of doors! But you?” He gripped his spear, turning the tip of it against her. “You’re the only one who has ever spoken with the Master. You’re the only one who has ever disposed of the thieves. You’re the only one who seems to know something. What are you hiding from me and Ki?”

  Ti narrowed her green eyes, glinting with malice in the dark of the Chamber. She raised her spear to guard herself against him in case he made a move to attack. “The Master has told you everything he wishes for you to know,” she ground out. “There’s no point in wondering so stop stressing yourself out and do your job, or I’ll show you the fate those thieves met.”

  Na drew back. “Are you threatening me?”

  “I will do what I must.”

  Ki leapt in between the two, careful of the sharp points of their spears. She stuck her arms out to shield Na behind her, setting her jaw and trying her best to look menacing enough to force Ti to stand down.

  “Let’s not fight, guys!” she cried, though her voice betrayed her by wavering a little. She chewed at her lip, dropping her arms to cast a look back at Na. “What are you doing? You promised we would get to the bottom of this together.”

  “You’re in on it, too?” Ti asked, incredulousness dripping from every word. 

  Ki winced at her tone. “J-just wait a moment, I can explain. Na and I sensed that something was wrong, and--”

  “If Ti won’t agree to give us answers,” Na cut in, “then I’m going to enter the Vault myself.”

  Ice cold fear gripped Ki’s heart, freezing down to the tips of her fingers before settling in a heavy knot at the pit of her stomach. She didn’t know why, but the statement filled her with a sense of dread, like every word he had said was wrong. Asking questions and wondering about the Chamber, the Vault, and the Master was one thing, but every inch of her stood on end at the mention of entering the Vault.

  It went against everything they were told to do. It was the one condition the Master had set for them when they became Vault Guards.

  “Y-you’re not serious… are you?” she asked. She knew the answer before the words even left her lips.

  Na’s gaze was a hardened amber, so different from his usual soft brown. His fists were clenched at his sides, the tip of his spear still pointed down at the ground. The bloodstains on his shoulder returned to a bright red color as his wound grew agitated.

  Ki’s breath caught in her throat. She had never seen Na more serious about anything in all the time she had known him. While there was no way to judge exactly how long it had been, she knew deep down that it was more than enough.

  Na was more than just her fellow Guard, he was her friend.

  And her friend was leading himself closer and closer to his own demise. Towards a fate she wouldn’t wish on anyone.

  Na was disobeying the Master.

  “Think very carefully about what you’re saying, Na,” Ti said, but there was no concern in her voice. Looking at her face, there was no emotion there at all. Her eyes had gone cold, her expression relaxed. Even her posture had shifted and her grip on her spear had changed. 

  Did Ti not feel the dreadful wrongness in the air? Did Ti not fear for their friend?

  Na ignored her and instead turned to Ki. When he did, his expression softened ever so slightly. He dropped his staff and offered his hand to her, the slightest hint of a smile on his face.

  “Come on, Ki. I did promise we would be in this together.”

  Ki stared at him numbly, her mind completely silent for once. Inhaling sharply, she withdrew her own hands and held them against her chest, keeping her spear tightly gripped between her fingers. “I know we did, but I… I…”

  Hurt crossed his expression as he withdrew. Then, he steeled himself and the tight-lipped frown returned. Without a word, he turned to the Vault doors. There was no pause, not even a moment of hesitation. He laid his hands on the doors and hauled them open, revealing a pitch black room within.

  Ki cried out to him and stepped forward to chase after him. Ti’s hand on her shoulder grounded her in place while Na ventured inside the Vault.

  The doors banged shut behind them, echoing in the silence of the Chamber. There was no sound from inside, no hint that Na was there. Even his spear, which he had left in front of the Vault doors, vanished in the blink of an eye.

  Ti released her. Without the hand to hold her upright, Ki collapsed on her hands and knees. She stared blankly at the floor, a thick haze settling over her mind. Numbness fell over her body, leaving her limbs heavy with regret.

  Just like that, Na was gone.