Proof.
Terror threatened to choke her, everything more real, more urgent, but she ignored it.
Faldir needed them. Now.
“Go, Brand.”
One step down, another, and they were plunging into the abyss.
Sweat trickleddown Brand’s back, every droplet his only way of marking the hours they’d been descending.
There was no end in sight to the oppressive fog. It stretched infinitely behind and before them, sometimes thickening into opaque arms to test the barrier, and he had to stop himself from snarling whenever it dared a searching touch.
Like now.
Another black tendril bumped against the shield, Luna twitching like she could feel it, and Brand had enough.
“This is a good time for you to clarify some things,” he said, voice crackling with disuse. “You can start with telling me what this is around us and why you seem to know it so well.”
At first, he’d been glad for the silence. Each step closer to whatever dangers prowled below had tested his resolve. He’d needed the quiet to convince himself that bringing her wasn’t the biggest mistake he’d ever bloody made.
She sat up a little straighter, biting her lip. “I was afraid you might say that.”
Her honesty tugged at him, softening the sharper edges of his curiosity. “You have nothing to fear from me, Luna. Nothing at all.”
Internally, his lesser self had railed at the use of that name, embarrassed he’d admitted to their thoughts about the little moon and her scent of blessed light.
Such a fool sometimes. The beatific look on her face when he’d explained, the shine in her eyes…
Obviously worth it.
Besides, pretense was impossible when he raged. He had no care for falsities and roundabout wording when the efficiency of raw truth was right there for the taking.
“Many have promised the same,” Luna murmured. “Most turned out to be liars.”
He bristled at that. “I am not most, and I will ensure the others suffer for their duplicity.”
Whoever they were, whoever had damaged her so thoroughly, he would find them. Crush them. Raze their homes to the ground while they were still inside, begging for?—
A scream filtered through the bleak density. The first in a long while andmuchfurther off than the last, and he felt another little chip of hope fall away. He’d spent the hours torn between wisdom and barreling down the steps. Between slow and wary to keep themselves safe, or getting to Faldir as quickly as possible.
It was starting to feel like a fool’s errand.
“Please, Brand.” Luna’s tone was a quaking strangle. “Put me down.”
He obeyed, helpless in this form to do anything but exactly as she wished.
The soft, lustrous light of the shield followed her across the platform, highlighting the quiet horror twisting her features. Shestepped up to the cliffside, mere inches from the strange, dark liquid seeping from the stone, and he had to beat down the urge to wrench her away.
That same substance had been splattered on the ground above, mixed with Faldir’s blood.
It didn’t matter that her barrier kept everything at bay. There was awrongnessto it, even beyond its stench, and he didn’t want it anywhere fucking near her.
“I’ve seen this before,” she whispered, her fingers following the oozing filth as it crept down the rock to pool on his steps.
Her brows pinched down for a moment before she moved to the edge of the landing, her head tilting. Once again, a writhing wisp condensed and tried to get inside, and Luna followed its motions with a single finger, as if to play with the thing. She froze like that—head to one side, elegant hand in the air, and eyes fixed a million miles inward.
Until she said, “Meliora.”
