I've been here before during my heats. Killed things here. Survived things that would have torn other people apart.
But I've never been here while conscious and in control.
The wrongness of this place presses against my skin like a weight.
"Kess," Yaern says quietly. "Do you feel that?"
I do.
A pull. Low in my belly, tugging me forward.
The sacred altar calling.
"Yeah," I breathe. "We're close."
The path winds between trees grown in unnatural shapes, bending and twisting around us, their branches thick and heavy.
Then the forest opens up.
The valley is smaller than I imagined for a place where a peace treaty that ended a bloody war was signed. This was where dragon shifters and humans agreed that the battles and skirmishes would end in exchange for omega sacrifices, and it should be monumental for a place that has cost of forty-seven lives.
But it's only maybe fifty feet across, the ground flat and the sky open, ringed by trees that look just like every other tree in the Black Forest. The ground is covered in thick, lush green moss, soft where my bare feet skim in.
And in the center of it all: the altar.
It's nothing but a dark gray stone slab worn smooth by centuries, tilted at an angle for a body in repose. Iron rings are bolted at its four points, two for wrists and two for ankles.
This is where forty-seven omegas died.
This is where I'll die too.
I just have to make sure I kill him first. Or on my way out. Hopefully before I take my last breath.
Elder Torim gestures toward the altar. "It is time."
I walk forward. The moss gives under my bare feet, dipping where my heels sink in, strangely gentle and loving for a place that has seen so much death. The altar radiates heat—old magic, old death, old blood soaked into stone.
I place my hand on its surface and startle for a second, then put my fingers down more firmly. It's warm, disturbingly soon,and fluttering slightly, almost as if there's a heartbeat. Like something lives beneath its skin.
"Remove the ceremonial chains," Torim instructs.
An elder unlocks the thin silver manacles, letting the silver chains fall, and for a moment I'm free.
Then Torim produces the real chains from beneath his robes.
These are different. Heavier, thicker, made of iron inscribed with symbols. They're rusted in places—no, I realize, bloodstained. My stomach turns at the sight of them.
"Lie down."
Yaern looks at me, but I can't meet her eyes, because if I do I won't be able to go through with it.
I climb onto the warm stone and lie back against it, shuddering slightly. The heat seeps through the thin dress immediately, pressing against my spine.
Above me, the branches of the tree canopy sway. Through the gaps I can see the sky turning orange as the sunset approaches.
Torim threads the chains through the altar's rings and locks the manacles around my wrists. Click. Click.
Then my ankles. Click. Click.
