Below them, the trees parted around a monolith.
It stood in a hidden fold of the valley, a black stone spire wrapped in layered barrier light that had hidden it from the entire tournament, from every divining array, from every elder's searching palm. Everyone hunting for the inheritance of the Giant Lineage had walked past this valley for two days. The greatest treasure of the age sat here wearing a veil.
Cang saw through the veil because he had always seen through it. He fell from the sky like a dropped spear, Salma tucked against his chest, and his palm flicked out and pressed a single point on the barrier's outer ring.
The runic inscriptions unraveled. The veil burned off. The monolith stood naked in the sunlight for the first time in millennia, and a column of golden light screamed upward from its crown into the sky.
The valley lit up like a second dawn.
"We found an inheritance! AN INHERITANCE! THE INHERITANCE IS REAL, IT'S WEST, FOLLOW THE LIGHT!"
