His expression creased but he no longer stopped her as she walked toward the mirror, her gaze falling to the pedestal holding up the frame. Oddly, it reminded her of a spinning wheel. Embedded in its stone on the left end was a cylindrical red crystal, severed cleanly at the base. It hadn’t been placed there. It had grown there, fused to the rock itself, as if the chamber had birthed it.
And it was the same color as her spindle.
With shaking hands, Alora reached into her satchel and drew out the spindle. She removed the wooden handle, revealing the broken end of the crystal.
Her heart raced. Slowly, she pressed both pieces together.
It was a perfect fit.
A faint pulse of light traveled through the mirror, spreading to the glyphs at her feet. Cold air rushed inward, as if the chamber itself drew a breath.
Chills crawled down Alora’s spine.
Then the last two lines of the song fell from her lips. “So hush your voice and turn from stone. Or he will rise... and not alone…”
A sharp breeze blew. The lilies pulsed brighter. And something beneath the platform shifted, stone grinding on bone.
And Alora knew, whatever being this chamber served, she’d woken him.
But before she could run, the darkness swallowed her.
CHAPTER 45
Rune
The instant the song ended, Khar Avalen shook. The temperature dropped as a new presence emerged, guttering the torches.
Alora stood absolutely still before the mirror, eyes wide and unblinking, face emptied of thought. A hush fell over the chamber, deeper than a grave.
Rune’s shoulders tightened with unease. “Alora, we need to leave.”
She didn’t answer.
The glyphs underfoot pulsed against her soles like a second heartbeat.
Rune’s skin prickled. His lungs drew tight. The Scry Mirror flickered and he turned toward it without meaning to.
He knelt in a scorched field riddled with bones. A tired smile rose to his lips as he turned to ash and crumbled away in the wind.
The vision hit like a blow. Rune jerked his gaze away, throat tight.
What vision was that? Punishment… or fate?
“Mother…” Alora’s voice drifted soft and far away, like she was speaking through water.
He turned back, this time forced, dragged toward it as if caught in the tide. The mirror rippled again, the scene shifting.
A royal chamber in Argyle, a fae woman sitting up in a large bed, hair like sun-spun gold spilling over her shoulders. A newborn lay in her arms, tiny chest still, lips blue as dusk. Both were coated in sweat and grime, the sheets soaked with blood.
Salvia.
Tears streaked her face as she whispered into the darkness, voice breaking. “Please, save her. You promised me a child.”
A shape flickered in the corner of the room. Not shape, but absence. A shadow, darker than death, older than hunger.
A voice surfaced from the dark.You did not bargain for a living one.
Rune’s entire body went cold. He knew that voice
