“It’s a language of some sort.” I straightened, letting my gaze sweep across the text embedded in the smooth floor. “Ancient.” Then a thought occurred to me, and I strode around the altar, studying each image placed on the floor, suddenly realizing what I was seeing. “Messages from the fates?” It couldn’t be.
The symbols shifted and whispered their meaning the longer I looked.
I eased around the altar again, tracing the ancient runes sliced into the obsidian stone with a delicate touch, stopping each time they burned. Unscrambling all at once, words formed in my mind as though the stone itself whispered their meanings to me.
Reyla’s light flickered, highlighting the carvings. She stood by my side, silent as I studied each image before moving on to the next.
“Each is one piece of a bigger puzzle,” I hissed.
Her breath caught. “Can you understand what they say?”
I jerked out a nod.
As the meaning unraveled, I spoke the riddle aloud, my low voice throbbing through the room.
Through true love, the split becomes whole,
Unbound by curse, unifying the soul.
Then bring forth the jewel of the sky’s tear-bled hue,
Only with your bond will truth shine through.
I straightened,my gaze on the patterns encircling the altar. While the riddle teased at answers, it left enough veiled to keep us guessing.
I turned to Reyla. “Thoughts?”
Her brows furrowed as she let the words settle, her glowing fingertip absently sliding across the altar’s surface. “The jewel of the sky’s tear-bled hue…” She turned bright eyes my way. “A blue stone.”
“The ring Isodine left for you?” I breathed.
A deep, guttural rumble climbed up the walls, vibrating through my bones. Dust trickled from the ceiling, catching in the wavering light of Reyla’s finger. The grinding was slow at first, like ancient stone waking from an eternal slumber, before it deepened, rolling through the floor beneath us. Reyla stiffened, her hand frozen by her face. Shadows rippled through the room, pressing into the walls and stretching outward before snapping back against the smooth slabs.
Reyla's gaze locked on mine. “Are we causing this or…”
The sound was alive now, coiling around us, rippling the air. I felt like I was holding my breath, waiting for a storm to crash through. I wanted to grab her wrist and pull her back. But back to where? Every part of this room appeared to be breathing.
Waiting.
Shadows rolled over us in violent waves.
The runes I’d traced glowed, pulsing in rhythmic bursts thatmatched the quake around us. My stomach churned; the whole thing felt like a warning we couldn’t outrun.
Farris’s growl rumbled through his chest before even he went silent.
A boom erupted from the altar, the sound as sharp as a scream.
A jagged crack ripped across its surface.
53
Reyla
We gaped at the monstrous slab of onyx so dark it seemed to drink in the light hovering at my fingertip.
The room pulsed harder, faster, the throbbing blasts of the walls impacting my ears before everything suddenly stopped. Dust filtered through the air, and my ears rang, but the room had stopped moving.
Farris whined.
