“Your blood.”
I breathed a quick sigh, shoulders falling from my ears as I laughed lightly.
“That seems logical. I can just—” I reached for my dagger before the voice stopped me once more.
“Allof it.”
“A-all of it?” I whispered, wiping away the sweat from my brow and palms.
“The cost is equivalent to the knowledge gained,”the voice replied evenly.
My heart thundered in my chest, and my breaths came in harsh pants as I debated.
“Choose quickly, granddaughter of Fate. Your time is near an end.”
In more ways than one, I thought wryly.
Cautiously, so as not to alert Rohak, I shut the Bond, closing our communication so he wouldn’t feel my agony as I willingly spilled every drop of my blood.
I raised my dagger to my wrist, but paused with the tip balanced against my skin.
“My Bonded. Will he?—”
“He will live.”
“How—”
“The moment is now, granddaughter of Fate. Choose.”
The air vibrated with a suffocating intensity as the earth itself seemed to shake. With a cry, I dug the dagger into my skin, sharp steel slicing through tendon and muscle as I opened my arm from wrist to elbow.
Immediately, blood sluiced from the wound, saturating the rune-embossed rug. But it still wasn’t enough. Nausea rose and burned my throat as I gripped the dagger with my injured hand, fingers numb and cold.
The second cut was much less neat than the first, my body spasming from the blood loss, my movements jerky from the cold settling into my soul.
Tears streamed down my face as I finished, dagger falling to the ground shortly before I did, head thunking against the carpet.
But I didn’t feel the pain.
I felt nothing, oddly.
Just a bone-numbing cold and soul-deep fear that I’d done something irreparable.
A feeling that only metastasized when the voice whispered,“Your payment is accepted. We have not had one with blood as powerful as yours in centuries, granddaughter of Fate.”
Chapter Sixty-Six
Faylinn
Minutes, hours, or perhaps eons later, I awoke to the softplunksof my blood as it slowly dripped onto the carpet. With a groan, I hefted an injured arm in front of my face, surprised yet not to see the aggressive wounds slowly stitching together once more.
I survived, I thought weakly. My head pounded aggressively, and my arms ached fiercely, but even that couldn’t dull the anticipation throbbing in my soul.
This is it.I could practically feel the room vibrate with expectancy, with untold secrets and guarded knowledge.
The crystal resting on my chest glowed in earnest, illuminating the entire small space for the first time. If I reached across, my fingertips would easily press into each wall. Despite the fact that we were well beneath the surface, there seemed to be no ceiling in sight; the stone walls simply stretched to unimaginable heights, so far above my head that not even the bright, pulsating blue light from the crystal could illuminate the top.
I spun in a slow circle, face turned toward the heavens, and my hands loosely extended by my sides. There was something about this place, about this room in particular, that called to my soul and spoke to the vastness of things not yet understood. It was overwhelming and grounding all at once. I was only one person—a singular soul placed at this random moment in time and space where millions had come before me, and millions more would come after.
