A heavy beat in the darkness.Thump.
There it was: the heart of the planet.
It was not as Sonara had imagined it to be. Not a shimmering stone that was bathed in golden light, or a beautifully carved statue, or even a pulsing, writhing cluster of shadows.
It was simply a massive, jagged black rock that protruded from the smooth stone floor as if it had been planted there. It had the aura of pure shadows, like sorrow and sadness. Likedeath.
“The heart of the planet,” Azariah said, as wind heaved from the stone. It pulsed once, the solid black shifting as Sonara realized shadowsdidswim around it. It pushed forth that wind again, cool and full of an aura that had her curse writhing from within. “It truly exists.”
Her eyes glowed in the dark light from the heart. A black glow, if that were possible, that cast everything in a strange shadowed light.
Power.
Promise.
The purest aura Sonara had ever sensed. The heart called to her as if it were singing a song. A droning, sad refrain, one that she was certain had a voice. But she could not quite hear it.
“It’s… real,” Markam said suddenly. Out of the corner of her eye, the Trickster had stepped forward. The heart pulsed before him, sighing out again with its deathly wind.
“Markam?” Sonara said. “What are you doing?”
His eyes reflected the firelight as he leaned forward, almost as if pushed by a rogue wind. “Look at it, Sonara. Don’t you see what it wants?”
He took a step down, into the amphitheater.
Sonara’s body tensed, waiting for a trap; a threat, a great monster hiding in the shadows beyond the heart that they hadn’t seen. But there was nothing.
“It wants to be taken,” Markam said softly. “To be wielded by someone worthy.”
A whisper of an aura pulsed from the heart. That song again, a melody that Sonara sensed inside, but wondered if anyone else heard. Beside her, she saw Karr tilting his head, as ifheheard the song, too.
Markam swayed a little as he took another step downwards.
The song, pulsing in time with the heart… it had begun to form words.
Save me.
Sonara heard them at the same time her curse picked up on an ancient scent. Fear.
Helplessness.
She was certain it came from the direction of the heart, as if the rock itself were speaking.
“Markam, stop,” Sonara said.
He’d taken three steps down, and as he drew closer, the whisper from the heart grew louder.
Save me.
Markam removed his dagger from his belt, his hands trembling as he stepped over a skeleton and kept going. The bones crunched beneath his feet.
“Markam, I saidstop,” Sonara commanded him.
But he kept going, lower and lower towards the heart.
Save me, save me, save me.
It commanded Sonara to obey.
