Chapter 64 Romie
THE SUNFORGE WAS BUILT AT the very base of the looming volcano. Ivayne and Vivyan told them it was known to erupt sporadically over the years, and Romie only hoped it wouldn’t do so while they found their way inside.
A large arched doorway was built into the jagged rocks, its carved columns intricately wrought, with threads of gold running through them and etchings of eldritch beasts and dragons in flight.
The archway was big enough to accommodate a dragon, but Gwenhael did not follow them into the Sunforge.
It chose instead to remain with the Golden Helm draconics, who, after taking care of the Fellowship, would lead Gwenhael back to freedom—and to other dragons.
Romie expected scorching heat as they trod carefully inside the mountain.
They found themselves in a gigantic cave, with columns like the ones outside lining a path that cut deeper into the darkness.
Rivers of steaming water ran through the ground they walked on.
In some places, geysers shot water and steam up into the air, as if warning them of what lay beyond.
“There is death here,” Vivyan said eerily. “I can feel it.”
The words made Romie’s spine tingle. But all she could feel was that song tugging inside her, beckoning her on. So close, it seemed to say, brimming with excitement that warred with the dread that permeated this place.
But the draconic was right: death did await them, in the form of a mound of bones.
A carcass. That of a colossal dragon that must have been twice the size of Gwenhael.
Ivayne and Vivyan fell to their knees, looking utterly heartbroken. “We thought, at the very least, that the Sunforge would be a haven for dragons,” Vivyan said. “Instead it is a graveyard.”
“What do you think happened to it?” Tol asked, eyes bright with unshed tears.
“Maybe it died guarding this.”
Ivayne motioned to the wall of smooth, black rock behind the carcass. It formed a natural arch and was flanked by two steaming, roiling geysers. The rock was shot through with veins of fire, as if on the other side of it were the fiery belly of the volcano itself.
Romie spotted the golden spiral etched in the middle of the arch.
The door to the fourth world.
Tol stepped up to it as if in a trance, called no doubt by the same song in Romie’s blood. Aspen grabbed his arm, pulling him back. Something loaded passed between them.
“The sacrifice,” Emory said, face blanching. “How are we going to get the door open without Tol giving up his heart?”
As if she’d just now emerged from whatever dark hole she let herself sink into to ask herself this. Romie shouldn’t have been surprised.
Tol squared his shoulders as he faced the door, fingers searching along the groove at the center of the spiral. It was shaped like a heart, the same way the Wychwood’s door had had a place in which to fit Aspen’s bone.
“If I have to risk my life to bring back the many-faced goddess and stop the worlds from dying, then I will gladly give up my heart.”
“You can’t be serious,” Virgil said. “Nothing is worth dying for.”
“I won’t have to stay dead.” Tol’s eyes flashed to Emory. “Right?”
Emory shook her head. “This isn’t something I can heal you from like I did Aspen. You can’t survive this.”
Romie looked at Keiran. The Shadow. This dark god wearing the body of a corpse.
A corpse that had been revived.
“What if someone had the power to bring him back?” Romie said.
Emory caught on to her meaning. “I’m not using Reanimator magic on him. I can barely use other Eclipse magics as it is, and this one… we don’t know how much of Keiran actually came back as him, before Sidraeus took over.”
Sidraeus. Atheia. That was what Emory had called the Tides and the Shadow when she visited Romie in dreams the other day.
Romie couldn’t help but see the clear divide between them now. Emory, a product of Sidraeus. Herself, a creation of Atheia.
I’m on your side, Ro. That’s never going to change.
Except they weren’t on the same side, were they? They were friends, allies, but opposites by fate’s design. She wanted to believe they could defy these roles destiny had laid out for them, that their friendship could survive it. But it was hard to do with Atheia’s warning still in her mind.
Such thieves could not be trusted.
“So, what, we just give up?” Romie snapped, angry at this wavering conviction inside her. “We didn’t make it this far to turn back now, not with us so close to reaching Atheia.” She looked between Aspen and Tol. “Right?”
Aspen swallowed, looking uncertain. “There has to be another way,” she whispered. “One that doesn’t require Tol’s sacrifice.”
“There is another way,” Emory said, her eyes locked on Sidraeus. “Blasting the door wide open.”