“Please place a hand in the center of the foliage,” Linden instructs mechanically.
I freeze, caution edging my stare as I examine the singular, plate-size, four-pronged leaf in front of me. Lorn places his palm in the center of his leaf, and after a long pause, I hesitantly move to do the same with mine.
It’s surprisingly warm and much softer to the touch than I anticipated. Despite knowing that this isn’t a solid gold tree, I still expected it to feel like metal. It smells surprisingly floral and sweet while still carrying an earthen undertone like mineral-rich soil. The delicate veins on the leaf are raised and fuzzy. They tickle my palm as they seem to map every line and crevice of my hand almost like they’re a biometric scanner of some sort.
Linden announces that we can remove our hands, but when I do, shock rings through me. There’s a bloody handprint stamped onto the leaf.
“Hey,” I exclaim, indignation ringing in the solitary word. “How did it steal my blood?”
I reach for the gilt thief, intent on reclaiming what I didn’t know I was offering, but the forked branch shoots up into the canopy, pilfering my print and hiding it within what must be hundreds of other branches and their gilded quilt of leaves.
“The transfer is complete. Would you like to access your Crush now, Dragoness…” Linden trails off, his eyes searching the small vid screen still sitting in front of one eye. “Tenebrae.” His cadence stalls as he reads the name.
Shock spills across his face, and his mouth drops open as though his jaw is laden with so much awe and wonder he can’t keep it closed. With a hasty wave of his hand, the glowing leaf-shaped screen disappears from his eye, and he surveys me, utterly thunderstruck.
“Is it possible?” he whispers. “The roots know, so it must be,” he continues, answering his own query.
The tree shimmies as though offended at being questioned, and I deftly slip into a defensive position in case any more blood-stealing limbs want to have a go.
“My apologies. Scioness Tenebrae, would you like to access your Crush now?” Linden repeats.
I chance a glance over at the male to find he’s once again wearing an indifferent professional mask. I can’t tell if he was apologizing to me or the tree, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter.
“Uh…sure,” I answer, sounding anything but sure.
This feels wrong. Not that the Crush is now mine, but that Enslee and the other Syphons aren’t here to explore it with me. The money, the treasures, the priceless collections of who knows what, they don’t just belong to me. It belongs to all of the Syphons. I should wait for them, but I can’t say that. And I can tell by the expectant look on Lorn’s face that trying to get out of this right now would invite questions I can’t answer, especially not with a Thrasher here searching every word for lies.
Linden watches me like he’s waiting for me to give him some sign that I’m good and ready for whatever is about to happen. The only problem is I’m not ready, not in the slightest.
What if there’s a portrait of my dad—or worse, my brothers—staring me in the face? Lorn said they added things to the Crush from my father’s tower, so does that mean the furniture from his rooms is down there? Would they have wiped the blood off or left it?
My breaths come quicker, and my heartbeats pick up, like the two are trying to race each other. All at once, I recognize the telltale signs of a freak out, and I quickly work to shut it down. Clearing my mind of all the triggering things that may or may not exist in this Crush, I focus instead on my breathing, on the fact that I’m standing in a magical cavern with a gold tree and a man who I’m pretty sure is a walking, talking root from that tree.
I’m safe.
I’m protected.
I can do this…even if it hurts.
I inhale slowly through my nose and then blow it out of my mouth in an effort to center myself. I do it over and over again until it feels like it’s working.
Before I can change my mind or start panicking again, I give Linden a nod. His eyes are gentle and his smile is understanding as his fingers start flying across his reappearing keyboard.
A deep rumble ripples through the stone all around me, and I turn to search for the source, but it sounds as though it’s coming from the mountain itself.
Flashes of my father’s face, my mother’s, my brothers, the queen, what they looked like dead, blow after blow lands like a sucker punch to the gut. I take the hits and wade through the pain, knowing there’s no avoiding it, not anymore. I’ve run from all of this. I’ve hidden from it. I’ve used it to fuel my retribution and to keep me moving forward. But now comes the hardest part, the part I’ve avoided at all costs. I need to start facing it…and I need to start now.
Chapter 28
THE RUMBLING OF THE MOUNTAIN grows louder, but when I look around, no one seems particularly bothered about that. Instead, everyone’s concerned stare is trained on me as I struggle to keep my shit together. As annoying as it is to have an audience, I’ve always worked better under pressure, and it helps to ground me in an unexpected and welcome way.
“The roots are rotating the vaults, the entryway will automatically open when yours has been accessed,” Linden tells me.
I can’t tell if he’s trying to give me something else to focus on or if he thinks I’m freaking out about the noise and he’s explaining what it is in hopes that I’ll calm down.
I look over at the tree and notice a subtle tremor is moving through the trunk and subsequent limbs.
Linden’s words make me picture a giant lazy Susan of treasure spinning under our feet. I have no idea if that’s how theroots rotate the vaults, but it’s the visual I’m going with. The rumbling morphs into a low, bone-vibrating groan before it suddenly stops.
