Alora almost blurted yes while gazing at him but then glanced away to the intimidating structure behind her. “I found your Gate.”
The torchlight illuminated the glyphs carved deep into the stone archway. Though the shapes were jagged and alien, her blood thrummed with recognition. Words rose unbidden to her tongue, slipping from her lips.
NAER VA THREX ULKAI.
NAER VA THREX ILLKEN.
Rune stilled, his crimson eyes flaring. “You can read Hellspeech.”
Alora blinked, shaken. She knew no other language than the one she was raised with, and yet she had also read the glyphs clearly, as she read the ones carved into the training yard.
“I-I can’t…” Alora stuttered. “I mean, the words came to me. What does it mean?”
Rune stepped closer, shadows restless at his feet. His voice dropped low, heavy with the gravity of it as he translated:
“None shall pass unjudged. None shall pass uncleansed.”
She shuddered and looked away from the effigies of screaming souls in fire.
Reading a language she didn’t understand was startling, but Rune looked more alarmed by the flowers growing around the Gate.
“Blood Blooms.”
His gaze snapped to her. “What did you say?”
“My mother wrote about them in her journal,” Alora said, recalling the sketch of those spindly petals. “The fae call them spider lilies. Some say they bloom where souls part ways. That they are the last light the dead see before crossing into shadow.”
Rune studied her for a long minute, then he turned away. “Come along, songbird.”
“Where are we going?”
“You and I will cross blades today.”
She froze. Was that an invitation, or a warning?
He spared her a glance over his shoulder. “I wish to test your mettle.”
Rune usually spoke idly, but there was something different about him this time. Whatever this meant, she could feel it would not be merely a test of skill, but of trust.
Nexus padded at her heels as Alora followed him out of the chamber, their footsteps echoing in the dark.
CHAPTER 25
Rune
The Hollow Mountain pounded with a faint, restless heartbeat, echoing his own. Rune kept his pace slow as they walked, though every instinct urged him to look at her again. He’d spent weeks away, convincing himself distance would quiet whatever was clawing through his chest.
It didn’t.
Other than the sun’s penance, staying preoccupied distract him. Scarcely. He spent most of his time searching his archives. For answers to the Fates prophecy and the origin of the spindle. For a reason to keep from burning this cursed realm to ash. Deimos’s reports had grown thin, the trace of the relic eluded even his Shades.
But they did discover one thing.
The spindle was made of crystalized blood.
Whose remained the question. Finding that answer had taken precedence over everything else. Well, that was the excuse Rune gave himself.
The truth was simpler, uglier. He’d stayed away because the sight of Alora had begun to unravel him.
