“Yes.” Lore stooped down beside me, his hand warm on my spine.
Dorion and Laphira eased closer, leaning their backs against the railing, watching quietly.
With a breath tight in my chest, I placed the feather in the center of the three.
The deck vibrated beneath my knees, and the feather twitched.
A glimmer of pale light bloomed from each talisman. Silver from the key. Crimson from the pendant. Blue from the featherdorn. The feather glowed like moonlight on still water. The lights trickled forward, threads of magic dripping like spun sikeen over the ship’s bow, merging and flowing into a single narrow stream across the waves, stretching forward.
A path.
Hope flooded through me so suddenly my knees almost buckled. We had a way forward. After all the riddles and uncertainty, we finally had direction.
I staggered to my feet, my heart slamming against my ribcage.
“You’re amazing, Wildfire,” Lore said, satisfaction rich in his voice.
Leaning into his chest, I pointed to the line glistening acrossthe top of the waves. “Let the wings be your guide. Feather. Wings. The talismans and feather are showing us the way.”
“We follow the lights,” he said, lifting a hand to gain the captain’s attention.
Farris barked and sat beside me on the deck, his tail sweeping across the planks.
The path stretched toward the horizon, beautiful and ominous. Somewhere ahead lay the Dragon's Nest and our chance to break the curse. But I couldn't shake the feeling that Prager was watching, maybe even waiting for us.
The final confrontation was coming, and we were sailing straight toward it.
Chapter 50
Reyla
The trail shimmered across the sea like thread spun from the stars. I stood at the prow with Lore by my side, clutching the rail as the wind tugged at his cloak he’d wrapped around me and secured at my throat.
“The sea’s whispering secrets,” I said. “If I could listen closely enough, I know I’d understand.”
“You said that on the journey from Lydel to Evergorne.”
I gave him a half-smile. “Did I?”
“And now it’s sharing those secrets. Most of all, it’s whispering that we’re strong enough to face whatever comes.”
Were we? I hoped so. This was it. All the time spent discovering clues about the curse and trying to figure out what they meant culminated in what would happen this evening. So little time left. He’d turn thirty within a handful of hours, and I wasn’t ready.
I worried I’d never be ready. My hands trembled all the time now, and I wanted to snarl at them that I’d already proven I wasworthy of whatever was coming next. But I feared the fates would scoff and make it clear I was anything but.
Ahead, cliffs rose from the water, jagged and silver in the moonlight.
Lore shifted beside me. Faint light from the crescent moon caught his profile, outlining the shades of weariness beneath his eyes. He tried to hide it, but I saw his stress in the tightness of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders. He was holding on for me, and I didn’t know if I was strong enough to deserve that.
The pain of impending loss tore through me, and I couldn’t hold it back. I was not mourning. I would never give up.
But it still hurt. Too much.
I kept looking at the timepiece, as if knowing how many hours and minutes we had left would somehow slow it down. Each breath was another second lost. Each heartbeat dragged me closer to the edge of something I didn’t know how to survive.
I’d thought I’d made peace with sacrifice. I hadn’t understood what it meant until I had to watch it creep into his bones.
What if we couldn't fuse the talismans?
