Chapter 50
Reyla
The trail shimmered across the sea like thread spun from the stars. I stood at the prow with Lore by my side, clutching the rail as the wind tugged at his cloak he’d wrapped around me and secured at my throat.
“The sea’s whispering secrets,” I said. “If I could listen closely enough, I know I’d understand.”
“You said that on the journey from Lydel to Evergorne.”
I gave him a half-smile. “Did I?”
“And now it’s sharing those secrets. Most of all, it’s whispering that we’re strong enough to face whatever comes.”
Were we? I hoped so. This was it. All the time spent discovering clues about the curse and trying to figure out what they meant culminated in what would happen this evening. So little time left. He’d turn thirty within a handful of hours, and I wasn’t ready.
I worried I’d never be ready. My hands trembled all the time now, and I wanted to snarl at them that I’d already proven I was worthy of whatever was coming next. But I feared the fates would scoff and make it clear I was anything but.
Ahead, cliffs rose from the water, jagged and silver in the moonlight.
Lore shifted beside me. Faint light from the crescent moon caught his profile, outlining the shades of weariness beneath his eyes.
He tried to hide it, but I saw his stress in the tightness of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders.
He was holding on for me, and I didn’t know if I was strong enough to deserve that.
The pain of impending loss tore through me, and I couldn’t hold it back. I was not mourning. I would never give up.
But it still hurt. Too much.
I kept looking at the timepiece, as if knowing how many hours and minutes we had left would somehow slow it down. Each breath was another second lost. Each heartbeat dragged me closer to the edge of something I didn’t know how to survive.
I’d thought I’d made peace with sacrifice. I hadn’t understood what it meant until I had to watch it creep into his bones.
What if we couldn't fuse the talismans?
My chest tightened with a persistent ache. I hadn't let myself cry since realizing every passing hour brought me closer to losing him.
Grinding my teeth, I lifted my chin and linked my arm through his, keeping my mind on what was happening now, not what might or could or even should happen next.
Mist curled along the cliff’s base, parting as our ship approached, still following the thread wavering across the water.
Dual falls gushed down the cliff ahead, water droplets sparkling in the moonlight as the twins merged into one river, churning into the sea.
“Beneath the crescent’s trembling glow,” I whispered. “Where rivers twist, and shadows flow, a pledge of twin-born hearts was cast, weaving a bond too vast to grasp.”
“What’s that?” Dorion asked.
“Something I was supposed to see.” I didn’t look his way.
It was finally happening, and Prager would not be able to stop this any more than she could the tide.
Farris rose from the coiled rope where he’d slept, sitting on his haunches beside me to peek through a gap in the railing, his ears pricked forward, his body tense.
The ship slowed as a path appeared between the rocks. Narrow and winding, it glowed where the light generated by the talismans touched. Some of the crew whispered behind us. Lore gave the order, and we drifted forward, the vessel sliding into the hidden cove.
When we reached a broad slab of stone, the talisman’s threaded light remained there and went no farther, Lore signaled to Christoff. “We’ll leave the ship here. Lower the anchor and wait for us.”
The captain saluted.
When the ship came to a halt, I gathered the talismans and feather, holding them carefully in my palm. Lore took my hand, and in silence, he flitted us to the stone slab.
Farris, who’d pressed himself into my side, stepped away from us as Laphira and Dorion followed, their faces pale and pinched.
We walked along the stone ledge that curved into a narrow channel, our footsteps echoing in the damp passage around us.
Light bloomed ahead, and we left the tunnel, emerging into a deep cove with water sloshing along all sides. The ledge continued to the far cliff wall, where it ended.
As we made our way around to that point, I tightened my grip on the blade and talismans.
My hands still shook. I hated that. No amount of training or titles could hide the truth quivering beneath my skin. I remembered the girl I was, an orphan growing up in a border fortress, with no goal in mind but survival. Anything to keep from drowning beneath fate.
I remembered how my prayers for Kinart to live had gone unanswered. Now it felt like I'd been dragged back to the past, every scar reopened, every fear louder than the one before. How could I hold a blade that was supposed to save him if I couldn't even keep myself together?
A hum echoed through the cliffs.
“The stone sings,” Laphira said, shooting me an encouraging smile.
“That it does,” Lore said with wonder in his voice.
A rune glimmered on the wall ahead, half-concealed by moss and mist. I moved toward it, guided by instinct.
My heart pounded in my ears. The symbols seemed to shift in the mist, almost alive.
As I approached, the blade in my hand grew warm, responding to something in the carved stone that called to it.
“I don’t know if I have the strength to do this,” I said, speaking mostly to myself, though Lore was near. “What if I’m not enough?” All my life, I’d been pretending to lead, pretending to believe. Now I faced the hollow cold I thought I’d outrun.
Fighting didn’t scare me.
I feared failing again. Not Kinart this time, but Lore.
He stroked my spine. “You don’t need to be anything more than what you already are. You saved me. You made me who I am today, and that will always be enough.”
There is no ‘enough’ in this world if you’re not with me, I said.
I always am. Now. Tomorrow. Evermore, Wildfire. I promise.
I turned in his arms, memorizing his face in the moonlight. “Swear that if this works, you'll never let me forget how close we came to losing everything.”
“I do.” His traced his fingertips across my cheek. “We're not losing anything tonight.”
His words cracked something inside me. I wanted to believe him, to take his warmth and let it burn my terror away. But there were other voices inside me, ones I hadn't silenced. They whispered of promise and ruin in the same breath.
My throat tightened, and I blinked fast. “And if I fail?”
“Then we fail together. But I don’t think we will. I’m not so much worried about tonight, but about what you’ll become if I’m gone.”
I could not swallow, could barely think after that.
Dragging myself out of my own head, I stared at the blade. The talismans. If this man believed in me, I had to find the strength to believe in myself.
Lore studied the rune, his eyes narrowing as he tracked the spiraling pattern etched into the stone. “This pattern is ancient Evergorne, though it’s older than anything I've seen.”
For a moment, the rune looked smeared, as if someone had tried to scrub it away. Then the mist shifted, and the lines were crisp again.
I blinked. Had that been real?
Lore huffed before leaning forward to trace his fingertip over a line that forked toward a shallow groove in the rock, placed there long ago.
I eased closer. “What does the rune say?”
He studied it a moment. “Blood and bond awaken what was lost. Strike true, and the drowned path will rise.”
“Blood and bond.” I stared at the stone. “I think it means we’re meant to use the blade.”
“I believe so too.” He met my gaze. “Strike true tells me only someone who carries essence, devotion, and dominion can open the path.”
Farris whined and jumped, nudging the blade with his nose. Sitting, he looked up, his gaze meeting mine.
His eyes held that otherworldly knowing I'd seen before, the same look he'd given me in the labyrinth when he'd sensed danger before I could. Whatever magic flowed through this place, he understood it in ways I didn't.
The blade warmed in my grip. Or maybe my grip warmed it. No, the blade was getting hot, and both that heat and Farris's gesture meant something.
All the symbols we’d chased, the blood we’d spilled. The bond that was meant to hold the courts together, and the talismans that weren’t made to force, but to guide. The “drowned” path couldn’t be a metaphor. It must be literal.
The blade had to come first, blood to awaken the bond, just like the original ceremony. Then the talismans could claim their places.
I nodded and pressed the blade’s point into the groove.
It burned with light. The runes flared and grooves appeared in the cliff face, grooves that matched the three objects in my hand.
Each one blazed with a different color. Silver for Essence. Crimson for Devotion. Blue for Dominion. The talismans pulled toward their designated places as if magnetized.
I laid each talisman into its groove, and the stone heated beneath my fingers. Light poured from the rune, crawling across the cliff face in thick veins. The sea behind us surged and retreated, surged higher and retreated.
When the water drew back again, it remained there, revealing an archway hidden beneath the surface. The entrance rose from the seafloor like a cathedral doorway, black stone gleaming wet in the moonlight with silver strands tracing through ancient patterns.
I carefully tugged each talisman from its groove, tucking them back into the soft pouch.
We picked our way down the slippery slope toward the revealed entrance. The tunnel beyond glowed with blue-white luminescence, and displaced air swept over us, carrying scents of deep ocean and ancient stone. The sound of dripping echoed from nearby.
At the threshold, the air thrummed with old power. It tasted like copper on my tongue, and the walls felt fever warm when I touched them, as if something massive slumbered beneath the surface.
My breath caught. “We found it. After all the riddles and searching, we’ve reached the Dragon's Nest.”
“Wildfire,” Lore breathed, sending me a lopsided grin that made my heart skip and race. This man could crush me with one look and lift me up with another, and I’d love him forever.
Hope truly was a dangerous beast. It pressed down on me so hard, I could barely breathe. Such a fragile, precious thing, it was. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Not for Lore. Not for us.
Magic hummed around us like a thousand voices singing far in the distance. My hair lifted, caught by the wind, and sparks of blue-white light danced at the edges of my vision.
The temperature dropped, and goosebumps lifted across my skin. The singing stone pitched lower, more a warning than a welcome. Even the light from the walls seemed to dim and flicker, casting shadows that moved independently of our bodies.
A grating sound scraped across my bones. Beside me, Farris stiffened, a low growl rising up his throat.
Lore’s eyes locked on mine. “We woke something.”
I wanted to shield him with my body, to delay whatever waited in the dark below. But the magic saw us. It might be judging us. And all I could think was that I would lose Lore in a hundred different ways if I wasn’t strong enough to face what was coming.
Behind us, the sea gurgled and churned, surging toward us. As if it hit a wall, it stopped and retreated.
I peered around but if Prager was here, she’d hidden herself well.
“Come for me bitch,” I whispered, tightening my hand on the hilt of my blade. “You want a fight? The fates are hungry for blood tonight, and I'll make sure it's yours.”