I opened my eyes and pulled back, feeling the full sting of his denial. He stood quickly, running a hand through his hair, his back to me as he moved toward the door. Then he turned to look at me, and we just stared at one another for a few heartbeats before he nodded and, opening the door, pulled it closed behind him, leaving me alone once more.
CHAPTER THREE
-GUIN-
One Week After the Announcement of the Shadow Trials
Iguided Shade along the narrow forest path that led away from Caer Gwyll and toward the Standing Stones.
Three years in Annwyn had changed me. Sharpened me. Hardened me. But I still wasn't prepared for the disorienting pull of the Whispering Wilds that spanned both Logres and Annwyn. The trees shifted when I looked away. Birdsong played tricks—a lark chirping at my shoulder one moment, then miles away the next. Shade's hoofbeats sometimes echoed before her steps landed, as if time itself unraveled here.
The Whispering Wilds. The name alone had terrified me as a child. You'd hear whispered stories of travelers swallowed whole by the forest, of trees bending to block escape, of leaves murmuring secrets that eventually caused a person to go mad.
A rustling sound came from my left. Or behind me? Impossible to tell.
Shade nickered, ears twitching like nervous fingers.
"Easy," I murmured, touching her neck. Her muscles twitched beneath my palm.
I unfolded the map again, though doing so bordered on useless. Not only did compasses die in the Wilds, but navigable stars rearranged themselves.
Shade pawed the ground, hooves striking the earth with hollow resonance.
"Easy, girl." Bred in Annwyn, Shade had her own sort of magic. She could sense distortions in magic and find true paths through illusion—something she was putting to good use now.
My fingers grazed the leather satchel at my side. Three objects lay within, and I would need each of them to cross over. The tallest Standing Stone rose before me, carved with living runes that shifted when I blinked.
I opened the satchel.
The first item—a vial of water from Annwyn's sacred pool, blessed by Merlin's own hands. The second—a compass crafted from bone and silver, its needle ignoring north in favor of magic's hidden currents. The third—a small vial of blood.
The compass pulled at me, and I followed its trembling needle around the ancient monolith directly in front of me, once, twice, until I stopped where moss grew in perfect spirals. The needle danced furiously. This was the spot—the thinnest point between worlds.
Magic thickened the air. My skin prickled. The earth beneath my boots throbbed with power. I uncorked the vial of water—meant to cleanse the surface of the rock. Then I dumped the vial over the stone and watched as the water covered it completely.
Next was the blood—Merlin's.
Three years ago, I'd crossed these stones on instinct and terror, guards at my back and death in my future. I'd stumbledthrough the stones somehow. Survived when I shouldn't have. To this day, no one understood why. Not even Merlin.
And on that subject, Merlin had been blunt:"I will not risk you on chance and hope."
So he'd given me this. His blood. The only substance that could fool the stones into recognizing their creator. As the one who'd woven the boundary spell and paid for it with his own life essence, Merlin could cross freely. The stones saw him as origin, as home.
And someone carrying his blood? The stones would see the same thing.
With steady hands, I tipped the vial over the threshold stone. Thick crimson trickled down the ancient rock, disappearing into its cracks.
For a breath, nothing happened.
Then the runes carved into the stone's surface woke—an eerie blue glow pulsing in perfect rhythm with my heartbeat. Each throb sent waves of azure light rippling across the ancient symbols carved into the stone's surface, the language of magic responding to the magic in the blood.
The massive stones began to shift. Not physically—they remained rooted in their eternal positions—but the space between them parted like a veil being ripped open.
I stepped forward.
Darkness swallowed me. No sensation. No sound. I was breathless, bodiless for the length of two heartbeats until reality snapped back.
I stumbled forward, gasping. Annwyn's twilight was gone, and now sunlight stabbed my eyes, forcing me to bring my arm up to shield them from the invasive light.
