He pulled back, gently setting her down on the steps. She held her shoeless leg off the cold stone ground beneath them. She balanced herself on the wall. Mal stepped away and reached for her shoe, kneeling in front of her on the step below. He turned back towards her with the shoe in hand.
Maeve held out her hand.
Mal looked up at her. His beam of light fluttering between them. She wasn’t sure why, but the sight of him on his knees was electrifying. Maybe it was just the dangerous way he looked up at her, like she was cornered prey and he was prepared to strike that enticed her. Maybe it was something more.
Mal grabbed the back of her knee, pulling her leg forward as he slipped the shoe back on her foot. She placed her foot on the floor, but his hands remained. They slipped up her leg past her knee and rested on the back of her thigh. She was certain he felt her shake at his touch.
His eyes moved back up to hers. They were filled with satisfaction.
“Careful on the stairs, Sinclair.” He stood and took her hand once more. “We’re nearly there.”
Maeve’s charm on her bracelet began to fade as light lifted up into the winding and narrowing stone steps from below. The light grew consistent and bright as the steps opened into a cavern.
Maeve let out a disbelieving sound as Mal dropped her hand. Green and blue and white light swirled between the sides of the cavern. A portal. This was a doorway between worlds.
But it was old. Permanent portals between realms were mostly all destroyed or weakened by now.
Maeve stepped towards the portal. The shifting colors bounced light across the cavern, like rippling water.
She looked back at him. Above the way they came, there was a carving into the stone.
Filii Magicae Numquam Soli. Children of Magic are Never Alone.
“Does this portal go where I think it goes?” Asked Maeve, her eyes on the Vaukore motto.
Mal took her hand in his once more, pulling her forward.
She was right.
Her heart swelled in her chest. The Dread Lands. Where no Magical had set foot in three hundred years. Adrenaline kicked as he pulled her towards the portal. She gripped his hand tightly and stepped closer to him.
“Have you been through it before?” She asked nervously.
He nodded. “Come.”
“Are you sure we should? It’s safe?’
He looked over his shoulder at her. “Trust me, please.”
The words were so soft, so genuine, that they were almost desperate. She tossed all fear to the wind in order to ensure his desire was obtained. He pressed forward into those swirls of colored light. The portal enveloped them, squeezing them tightly. Sound and light disappeared.
And then the ground beneath her was smooth moonstone.
She looked up.
Mist and shadow covered the land beyond, but before her were two giant serpent statues, each winding their way around the other in a towering archway. Their fangs were bared and their eyes filled with ruby stones.
Maeve gasped at their beauty.
Magic cracked through her lungs, down her chest. Her eyes went wide. She summoned a breathing spell, placing the palm of her hand over her mouth. But no magic flowed.
Another painful inhale, knives across her throat, and Mal’s hands grabbed her shoulders, pulling her back. The serpent pillars vanished as she moved back through the portal.
The caverns below the castle were warm in comparison. Mal dropped his hands, and she stepped away.
“I couldn’t breathe. And my magic-“
“The land is plagued with a darkness that only I can conquer.”
