Tolek was already getting out the mystlight lantern when I entered, a pale sheen falling across the hard-packed dirt floor and gray walls. Using a bit of water from our canteen, he cleaned the blood from his hand, the cut already healing over. The tunnel stretched into the distance, my skin prickling as I looked toward that darkness.
“Don’t set up yet.”
“Why not?” Tol asked.
I couldn’t explain the pounding of my pulses, the feeling that the walls breathed.
“I want to see what’s back there.”
Tol sprang to his feet and held out his hand. I looked at his fingers for a moment. Why did every movement between us suddenly feel weighted? He put no pressure on me, behaving as he always had. The only difference was I now knew what purpose lay beneath each gentle brush of his fingers and teasing hook of his lips.
Though, I think a part of me had always known—the part that dared to kiss him. The part that felt free, that relented to the wild abandon he encouraged of me. There was a passion within me that only came alive in Tolek’s presence, muted when he wasn’t around. The part that belonged to him?—
No, it didn’t belong to him.
Because Tol hadn’t asked me to give any piece of myself up, especially not after everything I’d been through.
But the quickening of my heart when I looked between his outstretched hand and his carefully shuttered eyes told me that I might one day want to give it all to him. All of those broken pieces he’d so delicately held together, even when I hadn’t realized he was.
I crossed to him, gravel crunching beneath my boots, and it felt utterly right when my fingers curled between his.
I’d unknowingly but willingly traded a piece of my heart for a piece of his years ago. For now, we’d share those, guard them between us, and see what happened.
He squeezed my hand, and that silent promise was sealed.
With a mischievous flick of my brows, I swiped up the lantern and pulled him farther into the tunnel, following Angelborn’s pulse within my own. Sapphire treaded slowly at our backs.
For a long time, we walked in silence, listening to the Spirits breathe within the walls around us.
The tunnel narrowed, the ceiling dropping slightly, but a sense of power thickened the air, pressing down on us. We shuffled over dirt paths, winding deeper into the mountains, and the magic stirred my blood.
“How deep do you think these tunnels go?” Tol voiced the question I’d been avoiding answering myself.
“If I had to guess, I’d say they cover the expanse of the mountains.” Snaking passages stretching from one territory to the next, weaving through our source of magic. My chest tightened, a cold sweat beading on the Bond at the back of my neck. The tattoo seemed to come alive in here, nearer to its purpose, but my skin prickled, like eyes bored into it.
I whipped my head toward Tol, but his gaze was roaming the tunnels, cataloging every inch. A wind rolled through the corridor. His hand twitched toward his dagger.
“They must have been used for something.”
“Maybe trade routes? For things they didn’t want to haul up the mountains?” Even as I suggested it, it felt wrong.
Unease sank in my stomach, but I forged ahead, glad to have Tol’ssteady support at my back as that second pulse pounded beneath my skin like a beast ready to be unleashed.
Every step we took, the pressure was more pointed.
Finally, the mystlight fell across a doorway in the rock ahead of us, wide and arching.
I hurried toward it, the pulse quickening, tugging my gut until I was practically lurching forward. I pushed past that feeling, burst into the dark cavern.
And froze.
Empty walls towered over us, hard to see through the darkness swallowing up the space outside the circumference of our lantern. Branches stretched off the circular room, deep pathways into the mountains.
As I walked, holding the lantern higher, I realized three walls were carved with wide steps, climbing to the top.
No, not steps.
Seats.
