Lara's POV
She stood frozen in place.
Because anguish was what held her in place, half of it.
The other half was something far more dangerous — desolation.
Cold air pressed against Lara's skin, thick with the scent of ancient stone and something older — a stillness that did not belong to the living.
Not the shallow kind born from loneliness or loss, but a vast, hollow certainty carved into her bones. A remembrance of the past. A grief so intense it suffocated her.
This place…
This chamber had once been part of her world.
Not as an explorer. Not as a trespasser. But as someone who had stood there with authority. With intimacy. With belonging.
Her gaze drifted across the rows of black stone sarcophagi lining the chamber walls, each one carved with imperial insignias and names worn soft by time.
A tremor passed through her fingers.
Those… those wouldn't…
Her breath hitched.
Would they contain the remains of my children? My grandchildren and great-grandchildren?
