Chapter 36
He pulled a piece of paper from his pack and unfolded it carefully. Levinica's prophecy, in Segolayne’s slanted hand.
I read it silently over Rìan's shoulder and felt a pang in my chest at the knowledge that only a few short weeks ago, I wouldn't have been able to read it at all. It was Levinica who’d taken it upon herself to teach me.
This ability to read, to touch knowledge that would otherwise have been locked away from me forever, was because of her.
And now she was gone.
She would never know whether we'd managed to break the bond.
Not that she'd cared to know, in the end.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, trying to chase away the grief threatening to overwhelm me again. Rìan lifted his eyes from the page and glanced back at me, his expression unreadable. Was I standing too close? I took a step back.
Carefully, he folded the paper and tucked it into his pocket. Then he drew a knife from his belt and turned to face me. When he spoke, his deep voice echoed through the chamber.
“Three gates sealed in ages old,
Long forgotten, power cold.
The missing bone will break the state,
Riven by Seven, carved of fate.
Open flesh, unmake the thread,
Each must yield the first blood shed.
Drink, once you have been judged thrice—
Past and longing claim their price,
Last, the truth your heart would shield.
What lies within shall be revealed.
He who holds the missing limb
Bends life and death to suit his whim.
Keep it sealed, whatever cost,
Lest all the world be lost.”
He'd memorized the prophecy. He must’ve read it a hundred times over to be able to recite it so perfectly.
In one smooth motion and without so much as a warning, he drew the blade across his palm. Blood welled instantly from the gash.
“What are you doing?” I cried, aghast.
He exhaled in annoyance and levelled the knife toward me.
“Open flesh, unmake the thread. Each must yield the first blood shed.” He waited expectantly.
“We're supposed to cut ourselves?” I stared at him. “Are… are you sure?”
He gave me a look that suggested I was rapidly exhausting his patience.
I sidestepped him. “Get that thing away from me,” I said acidly, fixing him with my most venomous glare. “I can do it myself, thanks.”
I drew my own knife from my belt. I'd never cut myself on purpose before, and I balked at the thought of it. Not that I'd ever let him know that.
Clenching my jaw, I dragged the blade across my palm, hissing through my teeth. My skin parted easily, blood staining the steel red. It stung like hell.
I sniffed and straightened, doing my best to appear nonchalant, as though slicing myself open was something I did every day. Rìan watched me with a knowing glint in his eye that suggested he wasn't fooled for a second.
It irritated me. “Now what?”
Without answering, he extended his hand over the mouth of the well. I watched as droplets of blood fell into the darkness below.
“Now you.”
His condescension was rapidly becoming intolerable. Suppressing the urge to roll my eyes, I stepped forward and held my hand over the well. Blood slipped from my fingertips, vanishing into the darkness after his.
I frowned. I didn't feel anything… Was I supposed to? Judging by the crease deepening between Rìan's brows, he'd expected something to happen too.
“Well?”
His wound was already knitting itself closed. Wiping the remaining blood against his trousers, he withdrew the prophecy from his pocket and unfolded it once more. Minutes passed as he stood at the edge of the well, reading and rereading words he already knew by heart.
“Did it work?” I asked impatiently, though I already knew the answer.
"No." The word was flat, unequivocal.
He scanned the page again. “Endure the trials and be judged thrice. Then drink deep to pay the price.” His eyes darted to the well. “Nothing happened. We haven't been judged. There was no trial.”
I stared down into the endless pit. “Then what are we missing?”
He narrowed his eyes at the text but didn't respond. I circled the well until I spotted an old bucket resting beside it, its handle hooked over a rusted iron peg driven into the stone.
"Should we try drinking first?" I asked, gesturing toward it.
He crossed the chamber, seized the bucket, and gave the rope a quick inspection. The pulley beside the well looked nearly as ancient as the temple itself. It was a miracle the whole thing didn't crumble to dust the moment he touched it.
The pulley let out a rusty squeal as he lowered the bucket out of sight. Down and down it went until, after what felt like an eternity, a faint splash echoed up from below. He set his feet and began hauling it back.
Rìan heaved the bucket onto the rim of the well. Together, we peered inside. The water was cloudy and tinged brown. A sour smell drifted up from it—damp earth mingled with something faintly rotten that made my nose wrinkle.
“I take it back. I don't think we should drink this after all.”
“Try it.”
“You first.” We glared at each other.
His nostrils flared, but he relented. Cupping his hands, he scooped up a small amount of water and drank. His lips pressed into a thin line as he swallowed before turning to me expectantly.
Sighing, I dipped my hands in the bucket and took a cautious sip.
The moment the water touched my tongue, I nearly gagged.
Somehow, it tasted even worse than it smelled.
I swallowed with considerable effort, wiped my mouth on my sleeve, and then, when Rìan wasn't looking, scrubbed my tongue against the fabric.
We waited.
Again—nothing.
Just a foul taste coating my mouth.
Rìan muttered a curse and yanked the paper from his pocket again. He paced the chamber, reading as he walked, his eyes moving over the same lines again and again as though the answer might suddenly reveal itself. “This doesn't make sense,” he grumbled.
Another half hour passed before Rìan's patience finally snapped. He crushed the prophecy in his fist and hurled it to the floor, then dragged a hand through his hair.
I snatched the paper up before he could change his mind and slunk down against the side of the well, the stone snagging at my clothes. Carefully, I smoothed the page flat and squinted down at the words. I read them slowly aloud, trying to make sense of them. What had we done wrong?
“Three gates sealed in ages old,
Long forgotten, power cold.
The missing bone will break the state,
Riven by Seven, carved of fate.
Open flesh, unmake the thread,
Each must yield the first blood shed.
“Nonsense,” Rìan snapped, interrupting me.
I glanced up.
He was still prowling around the chamber, like a wolf forced into too small a cage. Every so often, silver flashed through his eyes, a stark reminder of the power straining beneath his skin.
His gaze snagged on the canopy overhead, visible through the collapsed roof. “Daylight is fading. We need to go.”
“Go?” I shot to my feet. “We can't go! We just got here!”
"It's a dead end!" he barked, his anger breaking free. "Levinica was wrong. Perhaps three hundred years drowning in her own grief truly did addle her mind. Gods know half the time she didn't even know where she was." His voice caught on the last word. Barely—but I heard it.
It didn’t stop the anger that constricted my chest so tightly I could scarcely breathe.
“Don't you dare,” I snarled, taking a step toward him. “Don't you dare say that about her.”
For the briefest moment, surprise crossed his face. Then it vanished, replaced by an expression so dangerous that I had no doubt it had sent grown men running.
“She was half-crazed,” he hissed. “Some days she scarcely knew her own name. Even before the madness, her visions were wrong more often than they were right.”
“Then why are we here?” I shot back. “Why did you drag us halfway across the Wildlands, chasing her vision, if you never believed her? She saw the Gates. She saw the bond breaking. She saw—”
“We're leaving.”
He reached for my arm, but I wrenched away before he could grab me.
“No.”
His expression darkened. “No?”
“No.”
His hand shot out and clamped around my jaw, forcing my chin up to meet his gaze. “You have no idea what comes out of these woods after dark.”
“I'm not giving up.”
“We need to leave. Now.”
“No!”
His grip tightened. “Don't be a child, Eidra. I'm not about to let you get us both killed chasing one of Levinica's delusions.”
"We need to break this bond!" I couldn't stop the desperation in my voice.
His lip curled. “Trust me, Eidra. There is no one in this world who wants this bond broken more than I do. No one.”
His hand slid down to my arm. His grip turned to iron as he dragged me after him.
I planted my feet and tried to wrench myself free. When that failed, I shoved at his chest with my free hand. It didn't budge him an inch. All it earned me was a warning scowl.
“Stop.”
“No!”
“Eidra—”
“I am not leaving.”
His jaw flexed. He caught my other arm and pulled me against him, hauling me bodily toward the exit.
No.
No, no, no—
We couldn’t leave! I couldn't spend the rest of my life bound to him! And Aedric—
The thought sliced like a knife to the ribs.
If the bond remained, then I would never save him.
Panic exploded through me. I fought him with everything I had, twisting, shoving, kicking at his shins, doing anything I could think of to make him let go. It accomplished nothing beyond irritating him.
He hauled me suddenly against his chest, my back pressed to him, his forearm braced across my collarbones. I knew this hold.
Step. Back. Twist. Push.
My body moved before I could think. The movements he'd drilled into me took over. I slipped from his grasp like an eel.
For the briefest moment, he looked almost stunned. Then he lunged for me.
I darted out of his reach, turned—and the toe of my boot caught on a pile of rubble. I pitched forward, my knees slamming into the floor. Pain shot up my legs as I caught myself on my hands, my palms scraping across the stone.
Stone that wasn't quite the same color as the rest.