Chapter 30 #2
“The lower archives move.”
Silence. Vareena frowned. “What?”
“The older sections of the Sanctum don’t always remain where they were constructed.”
I waited for him to smile. He didn’t. “Rooms move?”
“Sometimes.”
“Corridors?”
“Yes.”
“Stairs?”
“Yes.”
I looked at the doors again. “And we’re going inside why?”
“Your mother.”
Right. Two words. That was all it took. The irritation drained away enough for the reason we were here to settle back into place. Your mother walked these halls. I released Kieran. “Fine.”
He looked at me for another heartbeat before turning toward the doors. “Stay back.”
Vareena and I obeyed. That alone should have worried me.
Kieran pressed his palm flat against the faded circle.
Nothing happened. Five seconds. Ten. I was about to ask whether he had gotten the wrong forbidden door when the blue lamps behind us went out.
Every one of them. Vareena grabbed my arm. I drew Light instinctively.
“Don’t,” Kieran said sharply.
I stopped before it formed. The darkness changed. Not because anything moved through it. Because the walls themselves woke. A vibration traveled beneath my boots, so low I felt it more than heard it. Then another. The metal bands crossing the doors gave a faint groan. Kieran did not move his hand.
“What is it doing?” Vareena whispered.
“Reading.”
“Reading what?”
“Me.”
I did not like that answer. The circle beneath Kieran’s palm slowly brightened. Not silver. Black. A darkness deeper than his Shadow seeped into the grooves and traveled along each worn line. His shoulders stiffened.
“Kieran?”
“I’m fine.”
The ward brightened. His face changed. Only slightly. Pain.
“Kieran.”
“Stay back.”
The black markings reached his wrist. He ripped his hand away. Too late. Blood slid from the center of his palm. I took a step toward him. The blood never reached the floor. It hung beneath his hand for half a heartbeat. Then pulled sideways. Straight into the door.
Vareena whispered, “Gods.”
The ward swallowed every drop. The lamps flared back to life. Kieran stared at his palm. I grabbed it before he could stop me. The cut was narrow but deep, running from the base of his thumb almost to his wrist. “What the fuck did it do?”
“Asked.”
“For blood?”
“Apparently.”
“That’s asking?”
His fingers flexed in mine. “I never said the Sanctum had manners.”
I lifted my other hand. Light gathered. Kieran closed his fingers around mine before I could heal him.
“No.”
I looked up. “Why?”
“We don’t know what the ward is waiting for.”
“Your hand is bleeding.”
“I noticed.”
“You’re so fucking irritating.”
“So I’ve been told.”
His hand still held mine. Neither of us moved. Then the door spoke. Not aloud. The words appeared across the wood in a thin line of silver fire.
THE HAND THAT ENTERS MAY NOT SEEK TO POSSESS.
Vareena read it under her breath. “The hand that enters may not seek to possess.”
“What did you want?” I asked.
“To open the door.”
“Apparently aggressively.”
“Helpful.”
Another line formed beneath the first.
THE HAND THAT ENTERS MAY NOT FEAR WHAT IT UNCOVERS.
The three of us fell silent. Kieran looked at me.
“No.”
“You have no idea what I was going to say.”
“You were going to touch it.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
I stared at him. “You came here for my answers.”
“I came here to get you answers without letting an ancient ward carve into you.”
“You let it carve into you.”
“That is precisely why I’m objecting.”
Vareena crossed her arms. “I hate to say this.”
“Then don’t,” Kieran said.
“But I think it wants Lyra.”
His jaw tightened. “Thank you, Kamari.”
“You’re welcome.”
I moved toward the door. Kieran stepped into my way.
“Move.”
“No.”
“Kieran.”
“It read Shadow from me and took blood. We don’t know what it’ll do when it feels both from you.”
My stomach tightened. The Shadow rune beneath my clothes seemed to warm simply because he had said it. “I can handle it.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“What is?”
His voice dropped. “I’m not interested in discovering what an ancient Sanctum ward considers a threat by using you as the experiment.”
The words caught somewhere tender. There were moments with Kieran when I could almost convince myself I had imagined everything between us. Then he looked at me like that. Like keeping me alive was not an obligation. Like it was personal. “So what do you suggest?”
“I’ll find another entrance.”
“How long will that take?”
His silence answered.
“Kieran.”
“Lyra.”
“My mother.”
His eyes closed for half a second. When they opened, whatever argument had been there was already losing. I knew it. He knew I knew it. “Stay behind me if anything happens.”
“That is physically impossible while I’m touching the door.”
“You know what I mean.”
I slid past him. Our shoulders brushed. The contact was brief.
Still, I felt his eyes on me as I raised my hand.
The moment my palm met the worn symbol, the corridor vanished.
Not literally. I could still see Vareena.
Kieran. The doors. But the Sanctum pressed into me so abruptly that everything else became distant.
Magic slipped beneath my skin. Cold first. Then warm.
It moved through my palm, tracing my veins upward.
Searching. I sucked in a breath. My Light answered.
Gold burst through the circle. Vareena whispered behind me, too softly for me to make out the words.
The ward moved deeper. Past the Light. Toward the place beneath my left hip.
No. My Shadow stirred. I tried to pull my hand away. I couldn’t. “Kieran.”
He was already beside me. “Lyra.”
“My hand—”
“I know.”
Shadow rose around him. The ward found mine.
Darkness snapped across the gold. The doors shuddered.
Every light in the corridor exploded. Glass did not break—there was no glass—but blue fire ripped from the brackets and climbed the walls.
The Sanctum screamed. The sound came through the stone.
Through my bones. I cried out. Kieran grabbed my waist and tore me backward.
My palm ripped free. The sudden release sent both of us to the floor.
He hit first. I landed against him. For one disorienting second, all I knew was his arm locked around my ribs and his breath hot against my temple.
Then the other side of the doors shuddered beneath a violent impact. Hard. Vareena stumbled backward.
“What the fuck was that?”
Another impact. The metal bands flexed outward. I scrambled off Kieran. He rose with me, one hand immediately finding my arm.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Your hand.”
I looked. No cut. Only a thin black line encircling my wrist. It faded as I watched.
Kieran saw it. His gaze went cold. Before he could touch it, the doors opened.
Not outward. They drew apart by themselves.
A gap no wider than my shoulders appeared between them.
Beyond it was darkness. Nothing else. No blue lamps.
No visible floor. No movement. The cold spilling through smelled like old stone after rain.
And beneath it, faintly, a sickly sweetness.
Rotting flowers. Vareena came to stand beside us.
“No.”
“That sounded definitive.”
“I have changed my mind.”
“You volunteered.”
“I was operating with incomplete information.”
Kieran stared into the opening. “For once, I agree with her.”
I turned. “What?”
“We leave.”
I laughed because surely he was joking. He wasn’t. “You spent all morning getting us here.”
“And the Sanctum just reacted to you in a way I’ve never seen.”
“Isn’t that exactly why we should find out why?”
“No.”
His eyes were still fixed on the dark. I almost mistook what I saw for fear. Almost. Kieran did not seem to experience fear in sensible quantities. This was caution. Real caution. That was worse. “My mother could be in those records.”
His jaw flexed. “You don’t know what is down there.”
“No. That’s why we came.”
“Lyra.”
“If you want to leave, leave.”
His gaze cut to me. Vareena murmured my name. I didn’t look away from him. “You said you would help me.”
“I said I would help you find answers. I did not say I would let you walk blindly into a place that may be reacting to your magic.”
“Let me?”
The second the words left his mouth, Kieran knew. He exhaled through his nose. “Poor choice.”
“Very.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I don’t need your permission.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
He stepped closer. The opening behind him made the corridor feel suddenly narrow. “I know exactly how little control I have over what you do.” Heat flickered beneath my anger. His voice dropped. “Believe me.”
Oh. Vareena looked away. Again. My heart chose that moment to become profoundly unhelpful. Kieran’s gaze fell to my mouth. Only for a second. Long enough. The air between us tightened. I hated that he could make me furious and still do that. I hated even more that he knew.
“If you go in there,” he said quietly, “I go first.”
I swallowed. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Don’t make me reconsider.”
His mouth almost moved. Then he turned and stepped through the opening.
I followed. Vareena muttered a complaint involving both our names and poor decision-making before coming after us.
The doors closed behind her. Not with a slam.
Quietly. That was worse. The blue light from the corridor narrowed between them until it became a single thin line.
Then nothing. Darkness pressed against us.
I summoned Light. A soft silver-gold glow formed above my palm.
It reached barely six feet. The chamber around us emerged in pieces.
A pillar. The edge of a shelf. An arch disappearing upward into nothing.
Dust floating through the light. Vareena moved closer to me.
“Where are the lamps?”
“There aren’t any,” Kieran said.
“You’ve been helpful enough today.”