The closer I got to the pool, the louder it hummed. The sound lived under my skin, wrapping itself around my heart until it beat in time.
Thump. Thump. Thump. A rhythm older than language.
And it needed something from me.
Lips parted, I crouched by the edge. Cold sank into my palms, and the smell of wet earth hung in the air. I didn’t touch the water's surface. I didn’t dare.
“In shadows reach where secrets lie,” I said softly. “A goldenring the true heart must spy. With the cusp of shifting night…” I peered up, spying a circular hole in the ceiling. As I stared, the crescent moon drifted over to cover the circle, sending light down to arc across the rings.
“Seek the path where the dark meets light,” Lore whispered. “Ancient doors with puzzles guard. Within Evergorne’s walls, echoes marred.”
“With trust and flame, the way reveal,” I said, laying the key inside the first golden circle and lifting the golden pendant aloft. “Through hidden truths, the hearts you'll steal.” I placed the talisman inside the second circle. Sliding the featherdorn pendant from the pouch, I finished the riddle as I laid the tiny bird-like creature within the final circle. “Unite the strengths of earth and air to reveal the prize that's hidden there.”
My eyes blurred with tears as I stared around.
But nothing happened.
“Work, damn you,” I hissed. “Fuse.” I snapped my hand toward the pool, bringing it to a stop before I touched.
“Be careful,” Lore said from right behind me, though his voice sounded far away.
The hum pulled harder now, throbbing through my mind.
Fear caught my breath and held it, but I realized I wasn't afraid of this cave but of what I might be forced to see. Part of me already knew this place wouldn’t ask questions. It would dig up things I’d buried deep inside, things I was afraid to talk about out loud. It would expose them. Make me face them.
“Seek within to find the parts of yourself that are missing,” I said. “Fuse them to heal the wound that has long gaped wide.”
The pool’s surface rippled.
My reflection flickered, and I found myself alone. Lore did not stand behind me. Dorion wasn't puttering around, mumblingabout how creepy this place was. Laphira didn't follow him with a solemn expression on her face.
Farris didn’t sit nearby either.
They were there, but distant, as if a membrane surrounded me, blocking them out, leaving just me, kneeling in silence, the weight of my entire life pressing down on my shoulders.
Kinart’s image appeared in the pool, and my lungs stuttered.
He stood behind me in the reflection, tall and lean, the way I remembered him before the raid, before he took a mortal wound and bled out in my arms. Blond hair brushing his ears, a soft smile tipped sideways like always. By the fates,that smile.I missed him very much.
I waited and now you’re here,he whispered, his words echoing in my mind.Watch. See, Reyla.
A dreg ripped its claws through him. As Kinart gaped down at his insides hanging out of his body, his gaze met mine one last time. Tortured. In agony.
You did this…His voice drifted away to nothing, and he was falling, falling, smacking against the dirt cave floor while my friends battled around me.
“No,” I cried.
The scene repeated, each replay carving deeper into my mind until nothing existed except the agony of losing him.
“No. Stop,” I said, but it wouldn’t.
I fell forward, catching myself with my palms on rough stone. The cavern tilted. My breath rasped in and out of me. And the pain…
It drowned me.
Somewhere beyond the grief, I sensed movement, Lore trying to reach me through whatever barrier the pool had created.
He gripped my shoulder, breaking through the penance I’d been dragged into. “Come back to me, Wildfire.Please.”
