‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Ezer asked. ‘We can still go back. We can find another way.’
‘No,’ he growled and wiped his mouth. ‘This is my fate. I have to see it through.’
More bloodmarked his sleeve. His lungs were giving out on him. He needed to go back home, where Alaris could heal him as best she could, strengthen him with runes and give him more time. The Long Day would give them plenty of time, now that they knew where to find the Door.
But what if it changed places? What if you could only find itonce, or …
‘Ezer,’ Kinlear said, as if he sensed her hesitation. ‘We can’t turn back now.’
She was to wait here, to be his exit plan …shouldhe succeed. But … now there was no way inhellshe’d let Kinlear go inside without her. He needed her help and this washerfate too.
‘I’m going with you,’ Ezer said.
Kinlear whirled to face her. ‘What?’
‘You’re not going alone.’
He opened his mouth, like he was going to protest. ‘Ezer, it’s too?—’
‘Dangerous?’ she finished for him.
His lips snapped together, and he nodded.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I think we’ve established I belong in dangerous places, Prince. Or have you forgotten all I’ve done to make it here? I’m not the shivering thing you met months ago. Or would you tell me to stay behind, safe and hidden, the way others have done to you?’
‘I would never hold you back,’ Kinlear said. His eyes were on fire. ‘I wouldneverstop you from doing anything you wanted to do, Ezer.’
He released a breath.
For a moment, they stared at each other, chests rising and falling.
She wanted to kiss him again.
She wanted to …
He held out a hand. ‘After you.’
At that, she lifted a dark brow. ‘We’ve a raphon for areason, Kinlear Laroux.’
It was like walking inside her own dreams, but this time she wasn’t alone.
This time, she had a prince and a raphon, and they were both hers, in their own way. They walked silently down the tunnel, Six’s paws so quiet it was like she was born for this. For stalking her way into shadowed places, seeking prey.
The tunnel spat them out into a main corridor.
It was exactly as it was in her dreams. A wide entrance, the mouth that connected countless other tunnels. Her waiting room, where she found herself most nights when she opened her eyes.
She turned Six in a circle and looked at every arched entry, every shadowed tunnel waiting to swallow them whole.
To go straight, in her dreams, would have been to enter the place of her mother’s memories.
To take a left would lead deeper into the labyrinth, until she came to the door of the old cottage where she’d last seen Styerra. Where she’d first called upon the ravens as a baby, desperate to be saved.
Mother,Ezer thought.Help me. Where do we go?
The icy wind sighed past them, ruffling Six’s feathers, but Ezer heard no whisper. Perhaps Styerra had well and truly let go.
‘Which way?’ Kinlear breathed into Ezer’s ear.
