Chapter 46 Meryn
MERYN
There’s a massive chasm before us. The bottom disappears into absolute darkness. Right before the stone walls slip into nothingness, I can make out a dense layer of fog. I can taste it on the air, too.
My mind briefly rejects this. Where the fuck are we? Under the sea? Who could have built this impossible place?
On the far side of the chamber is a ledge similar to the one we’re standing on. And bridging the two is a narrow, arched strip of solid stone, about wide enough for one wolf to cross at a time.
“Slowly,” Venna advises.
Noemi nods, and her direwolf edges one paw out toward the bridge. The stone bears their weight well, and another paw steps forward.
Another paw step.
Nothing.
One more.
Suddenly, twin lines of golden flames streak along either side of the bridge. The stone makes a sickening cracking sound.
My breath catches in my throat as I watch Ephyse pause, terrified that the wolf is going to tumble.
“Fuck, it’s unstable,” Noemi says miserably.
I immediately understand her anxiety and what her task will be. The bridge won’t hold our weight—not without her help.
The most skilled Phylax warriors at the front can pull off insane feats with their shield magic. Precision-blocking arrows from the enemy while letting ours through, for example. Shoring up our soldiers’ physical shields so that they’re impenetrable—even while the soldiers carrying them are moving.
That kind of skill is still far beyond me, despite the brute strength of my own magic.
“I can shore up the bridge, but I’ll need to focus,” Noemi says quietly, a slight tremble in her voice. “I think I can do this, but…”
I nod in encouragement at her.
Noemi straightens her spine and shuts her eyes, face straining. When Ephyse steps forward now, the bridge doesn’t make a sound. They move quickly, darting over the bridge with light steps. And when Noemi reaches the other side, she slumps with relief.
“It worked,” her voice echoes.
But then she turns back to look at us, and her smile falls. She’s already sweating, I realize. It must be sinking in just how much energy it’s going to take to get us all to the other side.
“You can do this, Noemi,” I tell her. I wish I could communicate with her mentally. I do my best to show my support in my face, thinking, You’ve survived worse than this and more.
Noemi’s face hardens. “Stark next, while I’m strong,” she says with some grit.
Stark shifts on Cratos, clearly uncomfortable with leaving me behind.
But he can’t argue with Noemi’s logic. He and Cratos weigh far more than the rest of us.
He waits for Noemi to nod, then he guides Cratos forward.
They move quickly but steadily, keeping their bodies aligned.
He makes it across, and I exhale with relief.
Noemi looks strained. She’s leaning heavily on Ephyse, panting. Venna steps forward.
“We weigh nothing compared with those two!” Venna calls. “Light as a feather.”
Noemi chuckles, and the creases on her face ease a little. “Ready?”
“Meryn next,” Stark snaps. “The Strategos trial is still ahead of us.”
What he means is, if Noemi isn’t strong enough to get Venna across last, we’ll still be able to reach the Tear.
I flash on that image of the woman’s body, broken, from my vision. Is this the moment? Was it Venna that I saw?
But, no. Fuck that.
“Go,” I order Venna when she hesitates.
“Meryn,” Stark growls. But I shake my head at him.
I couldn’t possibly leave Venna last. Not if it means there’s a chance she won’t make it. Not after everything that happened with Izabel. I need to see her safely across before I go, too—I’d never be able to live with myself otherwise.
Venna steps forward. Noemi grunts and starts crying silently under the strain.
Venna and her wolf are startlingly fast. Even so, when they get halfway through, Noemi falls to her knees.
My breath catches in my throat. Venna and Skaia freeze as the bridge makes another sharp cracking sound and then teeters slightly to the left.
Fuck.
Fuck.
The bridge sways back toward the right. Skaia fights to keep her balance, Venna tilting precariously from atop her back. Noemi’s face turns white from the strain.
I can’t move. My blood is hot panic.
The moment stretches on indefinitely.
Noemi shoves her palms into the ground and staggers back to her feet. A resolved look comes over her, and with a snarl, she releases more power.
The bridge straightens, and the moment it does, Skaia leaps across the rest of it.
Finally, I can breathe again. Venna buries her face in Skaia’s gray fur, and Noemi sits down hard on the ground.
“Take a break, Noemi,” I order.
Anassa paces along the ledge. Her anxiety spikes, but I don’t let it get to me. I have faith in Noemi. She’s stronger than even she knows.
“I’m… I’m getting you across, Meryn,” Noemi growls out. She takes a shuddering breath, and her eyes blaze. “I swear.”
I smile at her. “I know.”
Because I trust her to keep me safe. I trust her to provide the same protection she never got. It’s all the hurt she’s endured that makes her such a powerful Phylax. She knows what it is to be vulnerable.
She won’t let me fall.
Noemi nods at us when she’s ready, clambering back to a stand. Anassa steps out onto the bridge. We move steadily. The bridge creaks and crackles, and Noemi lets out an angry sob. I keep my eyes on Noemi the entire time, willing myself closer and closer.
Halfway through, she starts to falter again, just as she did with Venna.
Anassa and I still. The bridge isn’t moving much, but the slight tremble makes my stomach tumble.
Where does that pit end?
If we fell, would our death be quick? Or would we be injured but alive, doomed to slowly starve in this cavern where no one could rescue us?
Would Anassa turn on me if I was the only thing left to eat?
“Pull it together,” Anassa snaps, hearing her name in my mind. “The wolves can sense your disturbance, and it is making everyone weak.”
She’s right. Straightening, I look across to Noemi, trying to project confidence. “You can do this.”
She nods, sweaty face reddening. With an agonizing scream, she floods the bridge with power one last time.
We bolt swiftly across.
And then I’m suddenly at the opposite ledge, and Stark’s hand snaps out in a bruising grip. He’s breathing nearly as hard as Noemi is. Cratos’s teeth are in Anassa’s fur.
I reach for Noemi’s hand and take it, still letting Stark hold on to me.
“That was incredible,” I tell her. The weight of four people, sure. But four direwolves, as well, two of which are massive.
Noemi’s crying. “I’m… sorry. I—I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, Noemi,” I tell her.
I don’t know what she’s apologizing for. Everything with Lucien, maybe. But it doesn’t matter. She’s one of us. “You’re done. Sit back and watch the show now.”
She laughs shakily and nods, following after me as I move toward the waiting steps.
The final room isn’t like the others, either. It’s dark and entirely empty save for a simple stone altar in its center.
I glance around. No inscriptions on the ceiling. No seams for pressure plates. No holes in the walls for spikes to shoot out from.
Just a dagger.
It glints on the altar, which is already ringed in a subtly flickering silver flame. I dismount Anassa and approach.
This room looks eerily familiar. Like something remembered from a dream.
My visions flash before my eyes again, the ones I saw using foresight—the tower. The waves. The body on the floor…
There’s an ancient script in the stone, carved so deeply that the words almost look burned into the surface. They’re written in a spiral along the rounded edge of the altar, and I start to read them aloud, circling the stone as I go.
NOCTURN’S CHILDREN MAY WALK WHEN CRIMSON CROWNS THE STONE.
LET STRATEGOS MAKE THE CHOICE, WHERE STEEL MEETS BONE.
A LIFEBLOOD WHOLE MUST ANSWER ITS CALL.
HESITATE, AND DEATH TAKES ALL.
A sacrifice. A dagger. Crimson crowning stone.
The meaning seems pretty damn clear. The vision I had of this tower, the body lying prone, Stark leaning over it: This is it.
The test where one of us must die, one of us children of Nocturna.
A part of my mind detaches at the thought, spinning away as if watching this from above. One of us must die.
Die. One of us must…
Fitting. A final sacrifice to prove our worthiness to whatever sick person put this series of deadly tests in place.
There’s a clicking sound, and a low hiss fills the air, interrupting my spiraling thoughts.
Tiny jets of smoke spew from the cracks where the walls meet the floor. A stinging smell fills my nose, like the spray of a skunk.
I cough and cover my nose, eyes stinging. “What is that?!”
“Gas. Meryn, I think… someone has to die,” Venna says, putting together the riddle as well. She steps forward and gestures at the dagger, face pale.
“Hesitate, and death takes all.” Noemi’s voice is full of dread.
Horror strangles me. The knife. It’s for me. This room demands blood.
I can’t simply cut my hand and bleed a little. It said lifeblood whole.
Someone’s entire life needs to be drained onto the stone. And if I don’t choose someone to go, we’re all going to die choking on noxious fumes.
How long do I have? Seconds?
“Take me,” Venna says quickly, gagging against the gas.
“Why?” I snap, my eyes stinging from the fumes. “So you can be with your sister?” She jolts. Probably thinks I’m being cruel. But I can’t stop to spare her feelings. She needs to hear it. “Right! Because Iz would want you dead, Venna. Are you serious?”
“Meryn!”
“Absolutely not!” I shout and pick up the dagger. There’s only one choice I can make. Everyone is struggling against the fumes now; they don’t even see me do it.
“Meryn, no,” Anassa shouts in my mind, reading my intentions. “There must be another way. Nocturna needs you.” Her mind opens to me: visions of her mother, father, killed for the throne.
Her lonely years in the mountains. Friends falling away, one by one.
Until nothing was left but her belief in the Sturmfrost line.
Her belief in me. Her yearning for me.
Tears stream down my face as I pull back from her mentally. If I’m going to have the courage to do this, I have to do it fast. I gulp a breath of air and then choke on the smoke, doubling over.
In my mind, again, clearer than ever before: my vision. That body on the floor. Stark, shouting in rage and pain as he leaned over it, obscuring the body’s face from view.
I think I knew as soon as I saw it.
“It has to be me.”
Anassa is silent.
“I can’t ask any of them to do this for me, Anassa.”
I show her what I’ve held back: the vision, the body. That glimpse of the future I held secret even from her.
She goes still.
Sorrow blossoms inside her, singing through her mind and into mine. It’s pure and true, swamping me until I gasp from the intensity.
“You did not tell me,” she says gently.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “It has been the privilege of my life to be bonded to you.”
She agrees, then. To sacrifice herself, alongside me. To save Cratos. To save all of them.
My direwolf. My heart.
My heart…
My next breath doesn’t fill my lungs entirely because of the gas, but it doesn’t matter. I lift my head and look at Stark again, drinking in his strained features. He has his nose and mouth covered, coughing. Tears rise again, blinding me.
I’m doing it for him. This way, he can live. They all can.
“Take the Tear,” I tell him, voice strangled. “Get it to Lucien, and bring down Killian. And—Saela. Protect her. Please.”
Stark’s eyes widen until all I can really see are their whites. He sees what I’m about to do too late. He lunges for me, but for the first time since we started sparring, I’m faster.
I drive the dagger into my own breast.
Right into my heart.
Darkness.
Pain blooming bright and wild and hot. Some part of me is agonized as my lifeblood rushes out.
Screams and cries. It’s my friends. Stark.
I open my eyes, and I’m there: that shadow realm.
I almost laugh. I sacrifice myself for them, and I’m brought here?! Will Killian be here, too? Is this some sort of fucked-up afterlife?
Shadows rush around me, enfolding me. They lift me up until I’m weightless, floating in a sea of dark.
“Well done, my child,” comes that strange, booming voice.
I twist my head frantically—who is it? Is he here, whoever he is?
But all I can see is the pitch-black shadow magic twisting around me in all directions.
And then the shadows loosen their grip, and I’m falling down, down, down…