Chapter 8 In The Dirt
Chapter eight
In The Dirt
Nora
I’m falling, plummeting through darkness with no end in sight. Air tears past my ears, cold and rushing. My stomach lurches up into my throat as I reach for something, anything, to stop it.
Nothing answers.
No floor. No wall. No light.
Panic claws its way up my chest and, for one awful second, I reach for the bond, secretly convinced it’ll be gone, but…
I find it.
Alive. Steady.
Sorren.
My vision blurs with tears of gratitude. Somewhere below me, I hear him cry out briefly before his voice is swallowed by the dark. I cling to it anyway.
He made it through the doorway.
He’s here. Inside the Egg with me.
I hit the metal floor so hard it rattles up through my teeth.
Lights flicker on, but not all at once. Instead, they pop on in staggered bursts.
A click here. Another across the room. Then three more in quick succession.
They snap to life like bulbs warming in their sockets, scattered and uneven.
But the light that spills out isn’t quite right.
It’s too bright. Too sharp. It flattens everything it touches, leaching the color from the walls, from my own hands, until it fills the chamber with something that looks like illumination but feels more like exposure.
Like we’re standing under spotlights built on an alien planet.
Like we’re under a microscope.
My heart stumbles when I see where I am.
A cage.
Suspended high in the air, it’s made of some kind of black metal. I rush to the edge and wrap my hands around the bars, only to jerk them back with a hiss. Whatever this material is, it’s freezing. To touch it is like placing my skin against a block of ice. So cold it burns.
I turn in a slow circle.
The cage floor is round. The bars arch high over my head, curving inward like a bird cage built for something just my size.
There are no doors. No windows.
“Nora!” Sorren’s voice calls out, echoing up to me, tight with fear.
I rush to the edge again, careful not to touch the bars.
He’s down below, standing in a rounded pit with a dirt floor.
It looks like the place where gladiators once fought beasts both real and mythical.
Walls of compacted earth rise high over his head.
In the dirt, roots twist in dark, knotted veins, some as wide as Sorren’s arm.
Gnarled. Twisted. Coiled tight beneath the surface, as though held in place by something stronger than soil.
The upper third of the wall, far out of Sorren’s reach, holds a mounted ring of weapons, containers, and locked chests.
They hang from iron brackets driven deep into the stone, suspended like offerings.
Each one is old-fashioned, almost medieval in design.
Blades with crossguards wrapped in tarnished silver.
Axes with crescent heads etched in curling runes.
Shields rimmed in gold leaf gone dull with age.
Between them hang heavy caskets and narrow, jewel-encrusted boxes, their lids studded with garnets, emeralds, and opals.
Some are decorated with filigree so fine it looks like ivy turned to metal.
Others are bound shut with iron clasps and locks, thick with rust or darkened by something that might not be rust at all.
One chest hangs slightly open where the lid has warped, revealing the glint of coins, the flash of gemstones nestled in velvet long since faded to gray.
Treasures.
Relics.
Prizes set on display.
Thornreaper must be there among them. The Amulet of Springtide too.
Above that, lost mostly to shadow, are tiered rows of seating carved into the stone.
Like an amphitheater, the Colosseum in Rome.
Figures sit along those steps, arranged in neat rows.
Watching. Still as statues. I can’t tell if they are real beings or props set in place for whatever strange theater we’ve landed in.
Either way, there’s a stillness to them.
Like they’re sitting there, waiting for the show to begin.
“I see you, Heir of Spring and the Heir’s Mate. What do you seek, that you come to me in this place? My domain?” a disembodied voice says, deep and resonant.
Sorren spins in a circle below me, searching. “Nora! Where are you?”
“I’m here!” I call out to him.
His eyes whip up to meet mine, and his shoulders slump in visible relief. Then he sees where I am. Immediately, his posture goes rigid. Rage vibrates beneath his skin, barely contained.
“Let her go,” he says, his voice deepening as his chin lifts and his eyes flash. His words are not a request. They are a demand. A royal order.
His shoulders hunch slightly. Not with fear.
Something far more dangerous.
The protective posture of an animal guarding its mate.
My cage shudders in answer. The floor tilts violently, and I lose my balance.
I fall to my knees and slide backward, windmilling my arms. I only come to a halt when my body slams into the wall of bars.
Ice sears across my upper arm. Pain brands through me at the contact, shooting and intense.
I scream as I jerk away, looking down to see the bloody imprint of the bars scored across my skin.
The floor snaps level again, and I scramble to my feet, shaking, one hand clutched over my bleeding arm.
And suddenly I understand.
This trial isn’t just testing him.
It’s testing what he’s willing to risk for me.
“That’s winter magic!” Sorren roars, outrage cracking through his voice. “Blasphemy to use it on my mate!”
“I am not constrained by the petty borders of your courts,” the voice replies, deep and echoing. “I have watched empires rise. I have watched them decay.”
There is no pride in the words. Only inevitability.
“I am sovereign here. I have presided over your kind and all others since before your histories learned to keep record. I have seen ambition dressed as righteousness. Devotion masquerading as destiny.”
A pause.
“You hold no power here, Princeling. I command all seasons.”
“Winter.”
A sprinkle of snow drifts down from nowhere, soft and silent. It lands on Sorren’s upturned face. He brushes it aside, lip curled in disgust.
“Summer.”
A ring of fire erupts around Sorren’s feet. So close that he flinches away, but there’s nowhere to run. The flames vanish as quickly as they appeared, leaving nothing but scorched earth behind.
“Fall.”
A violent wind tears through the chamber. My cage swings wildly, chains groaning overhead. I stagger, fighting to stay upright, to keep my skin from brushing those freezing bars. Below me, Sorren plants his feet and lowers his center of gravity, muscles straining as the wind claws at him.
“And finally…”
The voice softens.
“Spring.”
The air changes.
The sweetest perfume floods the chamber. Flower petals drift down from above in soft spirals, pastel pink, pale yellow, blue so delicate it becomes translucent, almost disappears, against the light.
They’re so beautiful I forget myself and slip my hand carefully between the bars to catch one. A single petal lands in my palm.
Soft.
Alive.
I curl my finger, and it crumbles instantly to dust.
“I grow weary of your interruption of my sanctuary. Of this mindless repetition,” the voice intones, without warmth. “What do you seek?”
Sorren plants his feet in the dirt, shoulders squared.
“I seek justice,” he says. “The Thornreaper. The Amulet of Springtide. The means to end Winter’s corruption in my court.”
“You think you deserve spring’s renewal? That you’re worthy of it?”
Sorren pulls himself to his full height. “I do.”
“You are weak,” says the voice of the Egg. “You stood and watched as your father was slain at your feet. You ran and abandoned your court. You hid behind this…this mortal woman who healed you, sheltered you, protected you.”
I flinch at the disgust in its voice. The way it says mortal like being one is a sin. My mind rebels. How could it know those things? How dare it judge?
Sorren goes very still.
Not shrinking or retreating. But the words land. I can see it in the tense set of his face. The flex of his hands at his sides. The way his shoulders lock as though bracing for a blow no one else can see.
For a terrible second, I think he believes it, and that makes something inside me snap.
“No!” I shout, pressing as close to the bars as I dare. “Lies! Don’t listen to it, Sorren.”
Sorren does not look at me when he speaks.
“What you say is true,” he admits, voice steady. “Yet you twist it. You paint strategy as weakness. Patience as cowardice. Love as defeat.”
His hands flex at his sides.
“My father did not raise me to be ruled by rage. He raised me to be a king. One who places the safety of his court above his own desire for vengeance. One who accepts aid when it is offered, because doing so is the greatest strength.”
Now he looks up at me.
“One who understands that survival is never a solitary act. Two are always stronger than one,” he says. “Especially when one of them is as worthy as Nora.”
The way he says my name, with such pride and tenderness, almost undoes me.
Not mate.
Not heir’s mate.
Nora.
Like I’m not a title. Not a tool. Not a weakness.
Just…me.
My throat tightens, something fragile and fierce blooming behind my ribs. I press my hand to the bars before I can stop myself, ignoring the cold that bites into my skin.
“I’m here, Sorren,” I say, my voice shaking. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Emotion flickers across his face, but it’s not relief like I expected. This is something softer.
Sadder.
Like I’ve just promised him something he already knows he cannot keep.
“Will you fight for the sword and the amulet? For your kingdom? For your love?” the voice booms.
Sorren does not hesitate. “Always.”
He shifts his weight onto the balls of his feet, knees bending, hands lifting, as his shoulders square toward whatever comes next. The movement is smooth. Practiced. Familiar in a way that has nothing to do with panic and everything to do with training.
With war.
This is where he belongs.
In the dirt.