Chapter 19
Nineteen
Heat pulses through me, thick, relentless, curling low and dangerous. It begs me to close the distance, to give in. Because I want to. God, I want to. Every inch of me aches with it, a dull, hungry throb that says, just one more time.
No.
No, no, no.
This is how it always happens. This is how I lose myself in him.
This is how I ended up in a magickal kingdom, a whole dimension away from anything that makes sense, sitting on a beach with an unfairly gorgeous man who smells like salt and seduction and makes my brain go soft just by existing.
Alder watches me, waiting, his finger still resting against my lips, his breath uneven, his eyes dark with promise. I know that look. That look is a trap. That look is a spell I can’t afford to fall under again.
I rip myself away, scrambling to my feet.
The loss is immediate. His heat vanishes, the touch disappears, but the ache he leaves behind, that hollow, open ache, burns hotter.
“I can’t,” I say, voice rough, splintering. “We can’t.”
His brows crease, lips still parted like he’s about to say something. Like he’s about to stop me.
But I don’t give him the chance.
I turn and walk fast toward the tree line, away from the beach, away from him, away from every stupid, dangerous part of me that still wants him more than air.
My pulse pounds in my ears. My steps crunch hard against the sand. I need space. I need air. I need to remember I’m not that woman anymore—the one who used to melt under his touch, fold herself into the shape he needed.
But he looked at me like I was still her.
And the worst part?
A tiny part of me wants to be.
A groan tears from my throat, all frustration and ache. I rub my temples. “Emotional maturity is wildly overrated.”
But dammit, I am proud of myself.
This isn’t running away. This is clarity. This is growth. This is the seasoned, evolved Gemma Summers making a goddamn smart choice.
At least, that’s what I tell myself as I keep walking.
There’s a rustle of movement behind me, the soft drag of footfalls in the sand. He’s not chasing me. Not yet. But he’s following. Because of course he is.
He always follows.
I don’t turn around. I don’t need to. I can feel him like gravity—like heat and memory and inevitability. His presence wraps around me like the tide, slow and sure, stealing all the space I thought I carved out.
The terrain shifts beneath my feet. The sand gives way to packed earth and beach grass.
The world narrows to a cliff’s edge, jagged and wild.
The sea churns below, waves smashing against stone like they’re trying to shake the island apart.
Mist rises, clinging to my skin, cooling the fire simmering inside me.
I inhale, bracing myself. One breath. Then another.
“Gemma,” he says, voice lower now, closer. “Don’t run from this. Don’t run from me.”
I force a laugh, but it’s brittle. “I’m allowed to want space.” My arms cross, locking tight over my chest.
But he’s there now—not as near as I want him but closer than he should be.
I whirl. “You don’t get to—”
And then I see him.
He’s flushed, lips parted, chest rising and falling like he just survived a battle. And maybe he did. Maybe we both did.
I try to hold onto my anger—it’s easier, safer—but I can’t.
His hands cup my face. His thumbs stroke along my cheeks, and it undoes me. This tenderness is more deadly than anything he’s ever said.
“Is it me you’re running from,” he asks softly, “or is it what you feel when we’re together?”
I want to tell him it’s both. I want to tell him I’m terrified. That he still has the power to shatter me, and that’s not a fair thing to give someone.
But I don’t say any of that.
Instead, I look at his mouth.
It’s reckless, stupid—but I can’t help it. My gaze rises to his lips like they hold the answer to the question my body keeps asking. His breath brushes my cheek, and I don’t step back. My hands twitch at my sides, desperate to reach for him. My lips part on an inhale I never finish.
He kisses me, warm and honey-sweet, and I forget everything but the taste of him.
The world tips beneath my feet, and a low hum rolls through the air, vibrating through my skin, through my very being. The ground pulses as if something beneath us is stirring, awakening.
My eyelids flutter open, and I catch a shadow moving beyond the trees.
I gasp against Alder’s mouth, breaking the kiss as my gaze lifts over his shoulder.
The massive trees groan as they shift, pine needles rustling and branches swaying, their ancient trunks bending like weary giants parting to reveal a long-buried secret.
A stone tower rises from the earth, its craggy surface weathered.
It’s a relic half-swallowed by the trees as if the island itself has tried to erase it from memory.
The twisted boughs of dead apple trees cling to its sides, brittle branches curling like skeletal fingers, strangling the stone in their lifeless grip.
Deep cracks wind through the stone like old wounds long scarred but never truly healed.
The hum grows stronger, vibrating in my chest, rattling through my teeth.
Alder’s narrowed eyes are fixed on the tower, brows furrowed and posture rigid.
I step back, my heart still racing from the kiss, from the energy pulsing in the air, from the way he looks at that tower like it’s a piece of himself.
“You know what this is.” My words barely rise above the hum.
His jaw tightens, his throat working as he swallows. “A doorway,” he says finally, his voice rough. “A forgotten one.”
His fingers drift to his stomach, brushing absently over the gold buttons of his shirt. His gaze flickers, distant for a moment, before he exhales and walks toward the structure.
“It’s the tower,” he murmurs, voice laced with something almost reverent. “The heart of the Kingdom of Cups.”
While I’ve been busy trying to keep up, trying to find some footing in a world I don’t belong to, Alder’s been in meetings gathering knowledge. He’s been putting the pieces together.
Dry, withered leaves float down as he pushes aside a low-hanging tree bough before trailing his fingers along the rough stone, slow and searching.
“There’s one in each kingdom,” he continues, his voice almost lost beneath the rhythmic whisper that seems to rise from the very earth. “They were once connected by magick—gateways that could transport the people of Towerfall from one end of the realm to the other.”
I blink at him, at the tower, at the moss that clings to the crumbling stone like it’s trying to keep it whole.
“So, this thing was like a…a wormhole?”
A couple days ago this would have sounded ridiculous, but I’ve seen too much to laugh at magick. I’ve watched a girl die in a chamber full of chanting and silver light. I’ve felt the air thrum when someone speaks the right words. I’ve tasted honey that made me forget my own name.
I’ve seen it. All of it. And somehow, this is just another piece.
I swallow, heart thudding in my chest. “But this can’t be how we got here…” My gaze drifts to the tower, but my mind is already somewhere else—on Mackenzie’s wedding. On that card. The Lovers. The pull. The dock on the lake.
There was no tower at Mackenzie’s wedding.
Only the card.
And Alder.
The magick wasn’t in the stone. So, was it in the card, or was it in us?
“This magick only exists within this realm.” He presses his palm flat against the rock, his fingers splaying as if feeling for a heartbeat beneath the surface.
“Or it did. Until it was outlawed. Until the ruling families severed the connections, and the towers and their magicks were left to wither and die.
“But now…” He turns to me, his blue eyes shadowed, their teasing glint dulled by something heavier, something that settles deep in my chest and refuses to let go. “They’re waking up.”
I step closer to the Tower, drawn by a pull I don’t understand. Like a thread tightening in my ribs, tugging me forward, demanding I listen, I feel it. Ancient. Beckoning. Familiar in a way that makes my skin prickle.
“Like your story about the king.” My voice is light, teasing, but the words taste of strawberries and honey, of his fingers brushing against my lips, of the warmth that curled through me as he fed me. My body still remembers, still purrs with the ache of something unfinished.
Alder tilts his head, watching me closely, like he hears what I’m not saying.
I swallow and drag my attention back to the tower. The moss-covered stone looms over us, its deep cracks rough and pitted as I press my palm against its cool surface. The moment my skin meets stone, something inside me shifts.
A pulse. Deep, reverberating.
It rolls through the air, through me, through every nerve in my body, sinking into my veins like a second heartbeat. The very stone beneath my hand groans, as if stirred from an impossibly long slumber, a beast shaking itself awake.
Bits of rock and moss tremble loose, drifting down like the tower is shedding old skin. Alder’s arm locks around my waist, and he pulls me against him, all warmth and unwavering strength as he shields me.
A thunderous crack as stone grinds against stone. Another bone-rattling roar, and a jagged fracture tears the tower’s surface. A dark void yawns open, exhaling a gust of air thick with the tang of iron and forgotten things.
I feel the pull of this place carve a path beneath my skin, around my heart, a whisper of what I’ve lost and desperately want to find.
Like iron drawn to a lodestone, like breath to starving lungs, I am pulled forward, every part of my body responding to an unseen force, my feet moving before I can command them not to.
The hum rises, no longer a distant beat but a living force that vibrates beneath my skin, in my ribs, sinking deep, curling into something inside me that has always been there, waiting.
Alder stiffens, but he doesn’t fight it either. There’s a shift in his breathing, but his body moves just as mine does—as if neither of us has a choice.