26. Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“See? You're not as hopeless as you think.” His tone dripped with sarcasm.
I ignored him and focused on the Weave. It didn’t glow here as it did at home. In the Seventh Realm, it shimmered, alive, tangling through everything. Here, it hid as a faint, dull shimmer, as though the realm itself smothered it.
I curled my fists. “It’s like the whole forest is dying.”
“Not dying…but it is starving. The mortals here have carved their homes into its bones, burned and stripped it. Every time they take from it, the magic thins. What little is left—” He lifted his bleeding palm closer again, with a blood drop still trembling there. “It resists. Bites back.”
The realm’s throb pressed harder, filling my Sight with shadows creeping through the roots—heavier than the threads that connected souls together. They were all black.
I swayed. His hand closed over my wrist.
“Let it in,” he said softly. “Stop fighting against it. You will never learn if you’re too afraid to feel the bad along with the good.”
The words burned worse than the rot festering around us.
Afraid? Ha! He didn’t know what it meant to touch and lose control, to let visions spill like fire. How bad that felt. But my body obeyed. I stopped bracing against the realm’s heartbeat.
It hit all at once—grief, rage, hunger, desperation so thick it drowned me. Mortals, animals, even the soil itself cried in a tongue I couldn’t name.
My knees buckled. His arm slipped around my waist, holding me up, and I had no choice but to lean into it. My defiance be damned.
When I opened my eyes, his were already on me, intense with the weight of someone who felt it too. He'd shown me what it was like for him. I couldn’t help but wonder if he always felt it. If he could simply turn it off…or not.
The rot-heavy pulse throbbed in my chest, threatening to split me open.
I let it pull until my Sight slipped free, I could no longer hold it on a leash.
Threads bled into view—faint, choked. One glimmered bright, shot through with something troubling.
It pulled me to a crooked, half-dead tree, bark peeling in jagged strips.
The last place anything sacred should hide.
“There,” I whispered, pointing.
Tairngire’s gaze followed. For a beat, he looked doubtful, then his eyes darkened. He sauntered toward the tree and pressed his palm flat to its trunk, runes flaring faintly.
He spoke with words I couldn't understand, low, old, curling like smoke.
“Oscail doras an fhírinne. Scaoil do run as do chroí.”
The tree shuddered. Wood split with a groan, a seam yawned open, air spilled colder than the forest around us.
My skin prickled. “What did you just say to it?”
His mouth curved. “Open the door of truth. Loose your secret from your heart.” A sidelong glance. “You should practice the Old Tongue, Little Seer. It will serve you better than reading your temple’s watered down scraps.”
I narrowed my eyes but said nothing. The seam pulled at me, its low hum rattling my bones. Something heavy waited inside.
Tairngire stepped aside, his expression dimming into something unreadable. “Go on,” he said. “Take it.”
My head snapped to him. “Why me?”
“Because I can’t.” His voice was even, though there was an edge to it.
“Can’t, or won’t?”
One corner of his mouth lifted briefly. “Half an answer is more than you usually get from me. Practice some gratitude."
Arrogant, mysterious bastard.
I grunted, pulse quickening, and stepped toward the decrepit tree.
The hollow groaned wider. Cold air rolled out, sharp and metallic, pressing on my lungs. I reached inside. Even before my hand touched, I felt it. The pulse, slow, steady. The air shimmered with it, tendrils of shadow curling around my fingers like they were testing me.
And then, it saw me.
Not with eyes, but essence. Whispers rushed through my head, words I couldn’t catch, promises and lies clawing for root. My knees nearly buckled, but I pressed forward until my palm hit something cold and craggy around the edges.
The Obsidian Heart.
It was far heavier than it looked, as if carved from the realm’s bones. Dark light swirled inside, restless and alive. It burned my skin, trying to break me. It wanted to. I could feel it trying to imbed itself in my skin, in my very essence.
I started shaking, it wanted to invade my head and I almost wanted to let it…
Behind me, Tairngire’s voice bled through, commanding. “Hold it steady. Don’t let it inside you.”
My teeth clenched, although his voice had brought me back from whatever disastrous cliff I was about to jump off of. “Then why can’t you do it?”
A pause.
“Because it was not forged for my hands,” he said, voice cool.
The heart pulsed harder, as if it had heard him and was scorning him.
I staggered back, clutching the stone as the tree sealed behind me, hiding all trace of what it had held. When I turned, his gaze burned hot, runes faintly glowing, ready to flare. But he didn’t reach for it. Because he couldn’t, and that meant it was mine to carry.
Tairngire slipped a leather satchel enchanted with runes from his shoulder. “Put it inside. Don’t touch it more than you must.”
I slid the Heart in quickly. The satchel sealed itself with a shimmer. The air eased the moment it was hidden, and I was able to breathe again.
“What am I supposed to do with it?” I asked.
No answer. His hand brushed my wrist, the bond pulsing like a command, and the world broke apart.
The mist swallowed everything.
When it cleared, I was standing in the First Forest. Unlike the trip into Morhaven, this was quick. Clean. Easy.
The shift nearly dropped me. The air here was clean, alive, drenched in the pulse of the Weave. I breathed deep. The knot I’d carried through Morhaven loosened at last.
A smile tugged at my lips. “Gods,” I whispered five words I didn’t think I’d ever hear myself speak, “it’s good to be back.”
When I opened my eyes, Tairngire was watching me. The expression on his face was worse than amusement. Because I didn’t know what it meant—didn’t know if I wanted to. I tightened my grip on the satchel. “I was asking what I should do with it. The heart. Before you so rudely interrupted me.”
His gaze slid to it. The runes on his arms pulsed faintly. “You don’t do anything with it,” he said at last, voice low and uneasy. “You carry it. Guard it. And never—under any circumstance—listen when it speaks.”
The satchel pressed heavier at my side, as if the Heart had heard.
And now, whatever it was had become my burden.
“You felt it. Didn’t you?” I swallowed. “When I touched it, it was almost as if it wanted me to take it...”
His silence said more than words. This was all too much. I was losing my grip, my patience, my sanity—and he just stood there watching all of it like a show curated just for him.
“I’m sick of this.” I snapped. “The Sight. The bond. These monsters. Now this.” I gestured wildly. “I’m exhausted, Tairngire. Do you even care?”
For a moment, I thought he’d deflect with a cryptic joke. But to my surprise, he didn't. He stepped closer, runes glowing faintly under his leathers. His hand lifted, slow, deliberate, brushing my cheek with his thumb.
“You carry it well,” he murmured, a hint of sorrow lingering in his tone. The bond pulsed abruptly enough to steal my breath. Then his hand fell away, voice hard again. “Take care when I’m gone, Little Seer. It might be awhile.”
“Gone?”
His jaw ticked, eyes flashing. “This trip has been…eye-opening. There are things I need to sort out. Keep the Heart safe. Don’t speak of it.”
Before I could protest, he dissolved into mist.
And I was left with the cursed Heart thrumming at my side, and an ache where his touch had been.