The shadows in the old forest grew long and thin, like stretching fingers. I could feel the chill of the coming evening settle on my skin, a damp cloak that my wool dress did little to keep out. Jane walked a pace ahead of me, her dark braid a slash of ink against the fading green of the trees.

“Are you certain this is the right way, Merry?” she called back, her voice tight with a tension I knew well. It was the sound of hope worn thin by hours of searching.

“The map says the ruins are east of the brook,” I said, pulling the worn parchment from my pocket again. My finger traced the line I’d inked myself. “We passed the brook an hour ago. It must be close.”

I wasn’t just certain; I was sure. The promise of it had hummed in my blood for weeks, ever since old Elias at the tavern had mumbled his tale into his ale. A forgotten church, a lost treasure from a time before the great fires. A golden statue, hidden away. To Jane, it was a fanciful story, a diversion from our dreary village life. To me, it was a key. A way out. A way to be more than the red-haired girl with too many freckles and not enough prospects.

The trees began to thin. And there it was.

It wasn’t a grand cathedral, not even in memory. It was a skeleton of stone, slumped amidst the ferns and ivy. One wall had surrendered completely to the forest floor. The remaining arch of the doorway gaped like a silent, hungry mouth.

Jane stopped. “It feels… wrong.”

“It feels old,” I corrected, but my own heart was knocking against my ribs. The air was still here, and too quiet. No birdsong. Just the sigh of the wind through the broken stones.

I stepped through the arch first. The floor inside was a mosaic of fallen slate and stubborn moss. Light, dusty and gold from the low sun, poured through a hole in the roof, painting a single bright column in the center of the gloom. And in that column of light, on a crumbled stone pedestal, sat our fortune.

The statue.

It was smaller than I’d imagined, no taller than my forearm. But the late sun caught it and burned. It wasn’t just gold; it seemed to be …