“I do.” His traced his fingertips across my cheek. “We're not losing anything tonight.”
His words cracked something inside me. I wanted to believe him, to take his warmth and let it burn my terror away. But there were other voices inside me, ones I hadn't silenced. They whispered of promise and ruin in the same breath.
My throat tightened, and I blinked fast. “And if I fail?”
“Then we fail together. But I don’t think we will. I’m not so much worried about tonight, but about what you’ll become if I’m gone.”
I could not swallow, could barely think after that.
Dragging myself out of my own head, I stared at the blade. The talismans. If this man believed in me, I had to find the strength to believe in myself.
Lore studied the rune, his eyes narrowing as he tracked the spiraling pattern etched into the stone. “This pattern is ancient Evergorne, though it’s older than anything I've seen.”
For a moment, the rune looked smeared, as if someone had tried to scrub it away. Then the mist shifted, and the lines were crisp again.
I blinked. Had that been real?
Lore huffed before leaning forward to trace his fingertip over a line that forked toward a shallow groove in the rock, placed there long ago.
I eased closer. “What does the rune say?”
He studied it a moment. “Blood and bond awaken what was lost. Strike true, and the drowned path will rise.”
“Blood and bond.” I stared at the stone. “I think it means we’re meant to use the blade.”
“I believe so too.” He met my gaze. “Strike true tells me only someone who carries essence, devotion, and dominion can open the path.”
Farris whined and jumped, nudging the blade with his nose. Sitting, he looked up, his gaze meeting mine.
His eyes held that otherworldly knowing I'd seen before, the same look he'd given me in the labyrinth when he'd sensed danger before I could. Whatever magic flowed through this place, he understood it in ways I didn't.
The blade warmed in my grip. Or maybe my grip warmed it. No, the blade was getting hot, and both that heat and Farris's gesture meant something.
All the symbols we’d chased, the blood we’d spilled. The bond that was meant to hold the courts together, and the talismans that weren’t made to force, but to guide. The “drowned” path couldn’t be a metaphor. It must be literal.
The blade had to come first, blood to awaken the bond, just like the original ceremony. Then the talismans could claim their places.
I nodded and pressed the blade’s point into the groove.
It burned with light. The runes flared and grooves appeared in the cliff face, grooves that matched the three objects in my hand.
Each one blazed with a different color. Silver for Essence. Crimson for Devotion. Blue for Dominion. The talismans pulled toward their designated places as if magnetized.
I laid each talisman into its groove, and the stone heated beneath my fingers. Light poured from the rune, crawling across the cliff face in thick veins. The sea behind us surged and retreated, surged higher and retreated.
When the water drew back again, it remained there, revealing an archway hidden beneath the surface. The entrance rose from the seafloor like a cathedral doorway, black stone gleaming wet in the moonlight with silver strands tracing through ancient patterns.
I carefully tugged each talisman from its groove, tucking them back into the soft pouch.
We picked our way down the slippery slope toward the revealed entrance. The tunnel beyond glowed with blue-white luminescence, and displaced air swept over us, carrying scents of deep ocean and ancient stone. The sound of dripping echoed from nearby.
At the threshold, the air thrummed with old power. It tasted like copper on my tongue, and the walls felt fever warm when I touched them, as if something massive slumbered beneath the surface.
My breath caught. “We found it. After all the riddles and searching, we’ve reached the Dragon's Nest.”
“Wildfire,” Lore breathed, sending me a lopsided grin that made my heart skip and race. This man could crush me with one look and lift me up with another, and I’d love him forever.
Hope truly was a dangerous beast. It pressed down on me so hard, I could barely breathe. Such a fragile, precious thing, it was. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Not for Lore. Not for us.
