There were no more walls. Even the one behind me fell away after a few steps beyond the door. I was in a large, open square room, much darker than the one I’d just been in. There was one white light above, suspended in the air over a strange set of glowing silver rings that hovered at shoulder height.
I approached them slowly, cautiously, remembering the itching, burning sensation in my palms when I’d neared the Oathstone. I scratched them once in memory, then pressed them against my thighs.
The floating rings emanated a faint hum as they turned slowly in midair. I fought every urge to reach out and touch them despite how badly I wanted to discover how they did that.
No, this isn’t it.
I startled and glanced around.
This can’t be it.
That voice again. Thatmale.It was coming from the other side of the room, I was sure of it, even though there was no one else there.
The tether at my navel came alive again, tugging me forward with a pull so strong, I thought it might pull me apart. I gasped and stumbled ahead, allowing the invisible tug to yank me across the room, toward the disembodied voice.
I just have to feel it again. I just have to focus.
But Iwasfeeling it. So strongly, I might get sick from the force of it. I closed my eyes and breathed, trying to calm my stomach and ease the frustration.
Hisfrustration.
What?
The wall directly in front of me slid open and I stared into the green eyes of a man I’d seen outside the eleventh tunnel. The same golden skin, same tall and muscular build, same lush black hair; he was supposedly from one of the high houses. Only now he wasn’t whispering conspiratorially into his friend’s ear, stoic and scowling. He was focused, every muscle rigid in concentration and vigilance. At least for a moment. In the breadth of time it took for him to do the same appraisal of me, the scowl was back and he pushed past me into the room.
“Are you the only one here?” he asked, his voice like a whip. I fought the urge to flinch.
“Yes” I answered, watching him approach the rings as I had.
He leaned to the side and walked a slow circle around them. “What are these?”
“I don’t know,” I replied with a shrug. "Were you talking to yourself out there?”
I nodded in the direction of the wall he’d come through.
He glanced up, first at the wall, then at me, and shook his head.
“No,” he said. Then he sighed as if this whole thing were more of an inconvenience than the life-altering event it truly was. “But you heard me anyway. Didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“I heard you too,” he confessed, and my lips parted in surprise.
“What did I say?”
“The same things I did, I imagine. ‘This isn’t the right way.’ ‘I’m not supposed to exit yet.’ ‘It can’t possibly be this easy.’ It appears we’ve been hearing each other think.”
My jaw dropped open entirely.
“Makes sense,” he muttered, more to himself than anything as he turned back around to examine the rings again. “Explains how my mom always knew everything my dad was going to do before he did it.”
“What do you mean?”
He frowned at me, eyes flicking over me once again in a second examination that seemed to be performed with much more annoyance. His impatience with me was beginning to grate on my nerves. My jaw ticked and I gestured for him to answer.
“What ring are you?” he asked, gaze narrowing.
“Fuck you,” I spat.
