I leave Kasian in the great, silent cavern of his grief and venture into the deeper darkness, seeking the one I am about to forsake. His footsteps are not hard to follow; the path of his heartbroken rage is a clear trail of overturned stones and deep, clawed gouges in the rock. The further I go, the deeper the silence becomes, until the only sound is the soft scuff of my slippers on the stone and the frantic, unsteady beat of my own heart.
I find him in a cavern smaller than the others, a simple, unadorned hollow in the rock where the crystal veins cast only a dim, watery light. He is asleep. The sight of him makes the air rush from my lungs in an audible whoosh, and I have to press a hand to my mouth to stifle the sob that claws its way up my throat.
He is curled in on himself, his massive, ten-foot frame looking almost small in the vast darkness. Sleep has softened themonstrous lines of his body, the brutal angles of his Urog form. The tension is gone from his shoulders, the fury is absent from his brow. With his head pillowed on his arm and his breathing a deep, slow rumble, he looks… peaceful. Almost childlike. He looks like the weary warrior who has finally found a moment of rest, not the terrifying beast who tore through Lord Jildred’s guards. This is the man I saw a glimpse of in the cave, the noble soul trapped in a prison of flesh.
My heart breaks. It is not a gentle cracking; it is a violent, shattering thing, a pain so profound it leaves me breathless. I am going to destroy this peace. My sacrifice will save his body, but what will his waking find? Me, gone without a word. It is a cruelty I would never inflict on anyone, yet I am about to inflict it on him. Because the alternative, the future Kasian painted for me of his slow, agonizing descent into mindless madness, is a cruelty beyond all measure.
Tears I cannot stop stream down my face, hot against my cold skin. I creep closer, my movements as silent as a ghost’s. I need one last look. One final moment.
I kneel beside his head. The heat radiating from him is a palpable presence, a stark contrast to the chill of the cavern and the ice in my own veins. I can smell the familiar, masculine scent of him, of blood and earth and something that is uniquely Xylon. I drink it in, trying to memorize it, to brand it onto my soul to take with me into the fading Kasian promised.
My hand, trembling uncontrollably, reaches out. I hesitate, my fingers hovering over the rough, grey-green skin of his cheek. Then, with a feather-light touch, I let my hand rest against him. His skin is coarse, but warm, so incredibly, wonderfully alive. A low rumble sounds in his chest, a soft, sleepy sigh, and he leans into my touch, even in his dreams.
The sob I have been holding back finally breaks free, a strangled, silent sound of pure anguish. “I love you,” I whisper,my voice a broken thing, the words swallowed by the immense silence. It is the first and last time I will ever say them to him. I lean down and press a gentle, fleeting kiss to his temple.
I force myself to pull away. The act is one of the hardest things I have ever done. My resolve, which felt so absolute in the face of Kasian’s logic, feels thin and brittle now, on the verge of shattering. But I think of the red haze in his eyes, of the mindless beast, and I find my strength.
From the small pouch at my waist, I pull out a sprig of dried leaves.Rirzed. A pungent herb my mother taught me to use to mask the scent of curing meats from scavengers. Its sharp, acrid smell fills the air as I crush the brittle leaves between my palms, grinding them into a fine powder. It is a scent of preservation, and of deceit.
I rub the powder over my clothes, my arms, my neck. The act is a ritual of betrayal, a final, necessary cruelty to ensure he cannot follow my trail when he wakes. I am erasing myself from his world, one scent at a time.
When I am done, I give him one last, lingering look. The sleeping giant. The broken prince. My love. Then I turn and walk away, each step a new crack in my shattering heart.
Kasian is waiting for me, a silent shadow in the main cavern. There is no triumph in his ancient eyes, only a solemn, weary understanding. He does not speak. He simply gives a single nod and turns, leading me toward a section of the cavern wall that appears solid. He places a hand on the rock, and a doorway of pure, silent shadow irises open, revealing a passage beyond.
We step through, and the air changes. It is warm, humid, and thrumming with an energy so powerful it feels like the air itself is alive. The passage is not dark, but lit by a soft, internal luminescence that seems to emanate from the very stone. The gentle, melodic sound of flowing water grows louder with every step. I feel like I am walking into the heart of magic itself, a finalpilgrimage. My hands are trembling, but my feet, guided by my grim resolve, are steady.
We emerge from the passage into a cavern that steals my breath. It is a vast, natural dome, larger than any hall in Lord Jildred’s estate. The entire cavern glows with a soft, silver-blue light that emanates from the pools of water that cover the floor and from the thousand small waterfalls that cascade down the crystalline walls. The air is warm and smells of night-blooming flowers, wet stone, and raw, untamed power. It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. A paradise.
My eyes are drawn to the center of the cavern, where a large, flat-topped island of black, obsidian-like rock rises from the largest of the glowing pools. It is here that the light is brightest, the hum of power the loudest.
And in the center of that island, stark and terrible and exactly as it was in the ancient carvings, is a sacrificial altar of smooth, polished stone.
17
XYLON
Iwake with a jolt.
Not slowly, not from the gentle depths of sleep, but with a violent, primal snap of awareness, as if a predator’s jaws have closed on the world. My eyes fly open to the dim, crystal-lit cavern. I am alone. The air is cold. Still.
Wrong.
I push myself up, my massive body stiff and aching. The rage and despair from our conflict left a residue of exhaustion in my bones. I look around the small cavern, my eyes piercing the gloom. Empty. I take a deep breath, and the world stops.
Her scent is gone.
Panic, cold and sharp as a shard of ice, cuts through the beast’s lingering haze. It is not a gradual dawning. It is an immediate, absolute certainty. The air, which for days has been filled with the warm, clean scent of her courage and her life, is now just cold, dead stone.
I am on my feet in an instant, my heart a frantic, hammering drum against my ribs.Dina.The name is a silent roar in my mind. I storm out of the sleeping cavern, my thunderous footsteps echoing in the oppressive silence.
“DINA!” The sound that rips from my throat is a monstrous, guttural bark, a sound of pure, rising terror. It is swallowed by the vast emptiness of the Vrakken’s domain. No answer. Only the mocking echo of my own desperate cry.
I search the great cavern, my movements frantic, destructive. I sweep a display case of delicate jewelry to the floor with a flick of my wrist, the sound of shattering glass a pale imitation of the shattering in my own chest. I rip a centuries-old tapestry from the wall, as if she could be hiding behind it. Where is she? Where did he take her?
The Vrakken. Kasian.
I track back to the place of our argument, to the spot where I last saw her. Her scent is here, a faint, fading ghost. But it is mingled with two other things. The cold, grave-dust scent of the Vrakken. And something else. Something sharp, acrid, and green. A masking scent.
