The Falling Kingdoms: The Hidden Coffins

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Bronze Ring

When the door of the mystery room was going to open, I imagined a long hall, beautifully decorated and jewelled with gold like the other parts of the Palace. But when it turned out to be a very dark vault, an old treasure chest sitting amidst of it, it was safe to say I was disappointed.
Leonie grasped my wrist and pulled me in, the door on its own closing behind us that made me jump in surprise. Now we stood in complete darkness, not aware of anything that surrounded us.
Leonie started walking forward, taking me with her. 

"What's th—"

"Shhh!" Very harshly, she shut me up.

I rolled my eyes, silencing myself.

In a moment, the brown treasure chest laying in front of us sparkled with golden light. I noticed Leonie's palm was resting on it, providing it with the light. As impressed as I was, my curiosity for what we were going to steal was increasing.

"Step back," she suddenly sat up on her toes and pulled the both of us away from the chest.

The chest threw itself open on its own, revealing so much brightness that I have never seen in my entire life. It was sparkling with jewels. My eyes popped out of their sockets seeing gold coins, necklaces, rings and small sculptures— all of them brightening like the sun.

But, we couldn't steal this. It didn't belong to us. We could get punished!

"Are you here to steal gold? You have magic, why do you need money?" I said, thinking why would she want to do such an absurd thing.

"I don't want money." She ridiculously replied, giving me a look that said "how can you think I'd do that?"

I shut up.

"You would've defeated the demon that day if it weren't for the vixen. Right?" She questioned, kneeling down in front of the chest again.

I sighed and followed her.

"I don't know. I wouldn't have defeated him, but I would have been able to at least save myself from his killing spell. That bitch made sure I couldn't." Gritting my teeth, I answered.

"It's a big risk going in the war without any protection against that vixen in your head. Even if you manage to take someone down, she will come in your way." Her eyes were fixed on the chest all this while.

"Wait, are you suggesting that we are here to steal that vixen ring you were talking about?"

"That's exactly what I'm suggesting." She gave that cold, badass smile that she gave me the first time she met me. I had gotten a bad vibe about it and now I realized, it wasn't a bad vibe, just fear of how determined and badass she looked while doing that.
"Now, look for a ring that is broad, bronze and has several vixens carved on it. We have seven minutes before someone finds out we're here."

That made my heart thud.

"Seven minutes? Why?" I asked while shuffling through all the heavy jewels.

"I was just able to slow down the security alarm. The keepers will know soon that we are here." She muttered, taking a few bronze rings out of the chest to her palm. There were so many jewels that it seemed impossible to find a small ring between them in seven minutes. But we had to do that, whatever happened.

"Security alarm? I thought angels might have some sort of magical connection that told them someone broke into the vault."

"That's what the security alarm is!"

Oh dear God!

I managed to bring back my attention to the chest, picking out small rings that didn't glow that much in comparison to the other sparkling jewels. Collecting a few in my palm, I began to go through them, carefully looking if all the features Leonie mentioned were in that particular ring. Minutes passed as we both silently kept rummaging through the chest. There was no sign of the ring! I was irritated and sweating. It was a closed room with absolutely no windows of ventilation and after these few minutes, I felt like it was shrinking, like the walls were closing upon us. It was two minutes before the security alarm could go off that I realized the walls really were closing upon us. I freaked out.