Erich faced him. “She isn’t safe with me, Fritz. If anything, I’m putting her in danger. I’m losing to the curse; I was a dragon for three days straight, and now it comes out whenever it likes. Once this is done, it’s better if I go.”
“What do you mean ‘go’?” Liane’s voice sliced through him. Erich froze; he hadn’t heard her approach, but now he felt as if the air had been taken from his lungs. This wasn’t how he wanted her to find out. Not right before she was meant to step into the water.
Erich turned to see Liane standing beside the oracle. They must have heard him and Fritz coming, and he’d just been too absorbed to notice.
Erich fumbled to find the right words. He’d hoped to address this more tactfully. But it seemed the universe wanted to make a fool of him instead. Maybe it was better to just get it over with.
“Liane, you’re destined for great things. I’m just a monster. I can’t be your shield. I’ll only hurt you,” Erich said.
“So, you’ve fucked me and you’re running away again? I shouldn’t be surprised. This is what you do, isn’t it?” she asked, hands planted on her hips.
He had no rebuttal because it was true. He kept everyone at arm’s length—Liane, Fritz, his uncle. No one he got close to was safe. And he did it for them, but Liane didn’t understand that.
“You could have been honest with me. We didn’t make any promises to one another. Instead, you were going to slink away like a bandit in the night. And that’s what hurts most. But I should have expected that from you.” She shook her head before stomping off.
He could only watch her walk away and feel like an absolute fool for it. But it was for the best, he told himself. She was better off without him.
30
Liane didn’t have long-term romantic relationships for a reason, and this was it. Honestly, it was a relief to end things before they got complicated. She’d be living on the run, fighting the forces of evil. When would she have time for canoodling and hot, steamy sex? She and Erich had had their fun; she’d scratched that itch, and now it was time to move on. It was fine. She was glad, even. She’d never asked him to stay forever. They’d had a good time, a couple of good times, and that was all she’d wanted. Right? Sure, Erich had led her to believe he might want more from her, but there’d been plenty of other men who’d done the same. Besides, there were more important things to worry about. Like the fact that Ludwig still hadn’t reached them and Luzie was nowhere to be seen, or how she needed to get a literal sword out of her back. What was some petty fling compared to the fact that she was the goddess’ chosen, who had some undefined destiny to save the continent from darkness and destruction? Those were real problems.
She exhaled out of her nose and tried to untangle the snarled knot of emotions that tightened in her chest. The oracle had given her a brief rundown of what she should expect to face in the pool. The vein was a source of pure magic; this one was outside the control of the church. They’d been attempting to tame it for decades, but this pool was stubbornly untamable. A lot like Liane.
“It’s been waiting for you,” the oracle had said. “We all have our parts to play. I’ve done my best to keep this place wild, feeding it what little untamed magic I could, but my time is running out. It’s time you claimed the power and completed the transformation.”
She’d tried to conform to the church’s rules and structures, but it’d never quite fit, like a mismatched shoe. Then she’d met the oracle, and even though she’d just met her, there was something comforting and familiar about her, like a wise grandmother.
A lot of what the oracle had told her mirrored what the Avatheos had told her. She’d step into the water and be imbued by pure magic. What happened within the water was where things differed.
“It won’t be easy by any means,” she had said to her. “Your body has grown accustomed to the sword within its flesh and won’t give it up easily. You’ll have to fight to take control. But the alternative is succumbing to it and the world losing that power forever.”
Compared to the Avatheos’ version of events, which had sounded like being wrapped in a warm blanket, the oracle’s ritual seemed like a battle. They hadn’t even reached the pool, and Liane was already bone-tired. And this was just the beginning; drawing the sword was the first step. She didn’t want to think about what happened next.
She returned to Erich and Fritz, who were standing over the tied-up patrolman. The man was unconscious, and his horse was busying itself grazing on the long green grass. In the distance, guards’ lanterns glowed, and a watchtower loomed over the horizon. She bet they could see all the ruins from there, those last crumbling remnants of a lost civilization. People whose day-to-day had been so intertwined with magic that pools of magic had been at the town center like a village well. She wondered what the veins had meant to them for them to build their cities and temples around them.
There wasn’t much time to wonder as they heard horse hooves trotting in their direction.
“Hail!” a guard shouted.
They sank into the bushes.
“Hail, Armin. Answer if you can hear me,” the voice called.
Liane’s gaze slid to the man, who was unconscious no longer. His eyes were wide open and staring right at her. He opened his mouth to answer the call, and she lunged forward to cover his mouth.
Not before he got out a half grunt, “He?—”
“Did you hear something?” a voice asked.
Erich knocked the guard over the head, rendering him unconscious once more, but the damage had been done. The glowing lanterns were drawing closer. They’d all get caught in a battle between guards on horseback. Liane didn’t have a single weapon on her, and not a chance of standing up to the guards. She couldn’t imagine small and slender Fritz the elf was much of a fighter, and she doubted the oracle was one for hand-to-hand combat either. Which meant they were greatly outnumbered. Erich had a grim expression on his face as he looked away from her and toward Fritz.
“They must have increased their patrol numbers,” Erich said.
“What will we do? We’re overpowered,” Fritz replied, rubbing his face. There were dark circles under his eyes.
“We just need to keep them away from the pool long enough for her to enter,” the oracle said.
They all looked at her. Had she seen this in a vision? Why not warn them so they could have come better prepared? But then again, that wasn’t how visions worked. Any seeing might branch off in a thousand different directions.
