Gemma smiled a little. Her beauty was astonishing, her hair gilded with inner fire. With her attention divided, our glamours were fading. Through the cracks came the telltale shimmer of her godly light. She worked fast, and with each root she wrenched free of the earth, she grew faster, stronger.
I worked at her side, not even my sentinel strength powerful enough to keep me from straining with effort. I could pry up only one root in the time Gemma took to rip out four, but we were doing it—slowly boring into the tree’s heart, creating a tunnel big enough to crawl through.
Ahead of us, something silver glimmered in the thick tangle of roots. The moment my eyes locked on to it, a hot wave of magic rushed past us and raced out into the clearing. Talan let out a sharp cry of pain, confirmation that something belonging to Kilraith was here. The echoes of servitude that still lived in Talan’s body could feel it.
Gemma faltered slightly at the sound and paused to recover herbreath, and right at that moment, a ball of sizzling magic slammed into the tree over our heads with a deafening crack.
I looked up just in time to see a huge section of the tree fall away. The root Gemma held lashed out, throwing her back toward Farrin. She hit the ground and was still.
My heart in my throat, I hurried over and felt for her pulse—faint but steady. Farrin, still singing, touched my hand. I followed her gaze to the tree, which had gone completely still. The tunnel Gemma and I had made was gone, buried in fallen branches. Whatever had hit the tree—some stray bit of magic from a fae or from one of my Roses—had punched a hole into its gnarled trunk and stunned it silent. I scanned the wreckage, making quick calculations. We’d gotten extraordinarily lucky; that hole was positioned right above the key.
“Keep singing, Farrin,” I said, then started to climb.
I hadn’t made it three feet before Gareth joined me, carrying my sword in one hand.
“I’m coming with you,” he announced breathlessly.
I didn’t stop climbing, but I was sorely tempted to, if only so I could punch him. “Get out of here,” I snapped, snatching back my sword and returning it to its sheath. “You’re supposed to be helping Talan.”
“He’s fine. Truly a strapping young man. It’s more important that I help you.”
“And what help will you be to me, exactly?”
The hole was just ahead, yawning like the mouth of a cave. The charred bark around it pulsed with a soft blue light. Beneath us, something shifted with a faint groan. We froze, listening hard and barely daring to breathe, but then the tree fell silent once more. We climbed the last few yards in silence, then crouched at the hole and peered inside.
We saw only a thick and quiet darkness, and at the very bottom, a faint glimmer of silver.
Gareth raised his broken glasses to wipe his face. I caught a glimpse of his wounded arm; the venom’s bruise had doubled in size.
“If you die,” he answered mildly, “then at least you won’t be alone.”
His quiet voice shook me. The sounds of battle raged behind us—the crackle of magic, our friends in combat—and Gareth’s voice was the thing that nearly made me lose my nerve. I could see the words he didn’t say right there on his face: he didn’t trust that I wouldn’t die doing this thing. More than that, he didn’t trust that I would fight to stay alive.
Maybe he was right not to.
“As soon as I have the key in my hands,” I said, a little shaky, “you’ll need to claim me as your prize and end the hunt. So as long as I’m alive, you’d better be too.”
Then I climbed through the hole and began my descent. Gareth followed my path, and despite my best efforts to remain unimpressed, he impressed me. Even with a limp and a poisoned arm, he moved at a decent speed, and he didn’t slip once.
A few short minutes later, my boot touched earth. We stood in a vast cavern of roots and stone. The only light came from the hole through which we’d climbed—now some seventy feet above us—and from my own body. The glamour was gone, and my skin glowed softly with power.
“Well, that’s handy,” Gareth remarked. To his credit, he did not gawk.
I said nothing, scanning the labyrinth around us until a faint glimmer to the right caught my eye.
“There it is,” I whispered.
Now that we were this close to it, the similarity to the other anchors was undeniable. Made of the same dark metal as the Three-Eyed Crown and the Mhorghast egg, the key lay in a tangle of feathery roots and bright yellow moss. It was half the length of my forearm and crusted with jewels, and as we approached, it began, quietly, to hum.
I reached for it, then hesitated and glanced at Gareth. The air around the key vibrated with power, making my fingertips tingle, but nothing pushed me back. No ward magic, no barriers at all.
“Too easy?” Gareth suggested, gazing at the key in fascination.
“Let’s hope not,” I murmured.
Then, as I reached for the key, my hand brushed against the yellow moss.
The pain was so sudden and sharp that I nearly blacked out. Even worse, everything around us abruptly heaved—the roots, the earth itself—like a massive beast gasping for breath. Gareth caught me before I could fall, and I leaned against him for a moment, blinking away the pain. A deep rumble shook my chest as the roots continued to shift.
