The Horrad leader and several others trailed docilely behind us, keeping up with the brisk pace I set even as their tents and campfires faded into the shadowed landscape. They wielded no weapons, only torches, suggesting they were merely curious.
I hoped it stayed that way.
We weren’t concerned about them seeing the entrance to the Domus. If it was visible to the naked eye, they would have already found it. And if it wasn’t, they would either be too afraid of the Domus to follow us, or we would deal with their presence there when we returned with Harthon’s forces.
I trusted the others were monitoring them, because I couldn’t. The pressure in my chest, which had been gradually building with every step, was now tipping into pain. I sped into a near-jog as that pressure expanded to my lungs, crowding them, forcing them to fight for their share of space within me.
When my breathing became thready, I gave up all pretense and broke into a run, suddenly fearing this thing within me was so excited, so focused, it would suffocate me from the inside out. As it was, it had nearly made me fall to my death back at Harthon’s Citadel.
Further and further we went, time an inconsequential blur as I sought that relief, thatrightnessthat I’d been chasing since this ball came alive within me. It was teasing me,sounbearably close and yet dancing out of reach.
I was still running when my vision flashed out, still running when a new scene replaced the shadowed woods. A familiarscene. The one that turned everything I knew on its head and landed me here.
Bright, gold light slithered over a black canvas as I lost track of my feet, my limbs, the chill of the air. The brightness amplified, those tendrils of light swirling, dancing, twisting around one another in the beginnings of a lattice. The glow of knowledge in my torso morphed into something else, something bigger, somethingsearing—
A guttural cry tore from me as I tripped, suddenly back in my body. I landed hard, hands buckling beneath me, ribs cracking against rocks. All that burning was replaced by the throb of my bones as I struggled to suck in a breath.
A series of curses cut the air above me, and a large hand landed on my back.
“Etarla—”
“I’m—” I wheezed— “alright.”
I think.
“Take your time. The Horrads aren’t chasing us. We don’t need to rush,” Harthon’s familiar timbre was a temporary balm, suppressing the whirlwind of sensations.
“It’smakingme rush,” I gasped out. I cradled my ribs with one hand and shoved up with the other, twisting to face him.
His face almost glowed, cast in a subtle wash of indigo moonlight. But the moon was hidden by the clouds, and he was facing me on the ground as he crouched at my side.
“They’re really glowing, aren’t they?” I asked.
He nodded vaguely as he studied my eyes.
Beyond him, Aric whistled. “Who needs firelight when you have those?”
“Per usual, I’m not controlling this,” I reminded him, rubbing my chest and glancing down at the rocks that’d so kindly cushioned my fall.
But they weren’t rocks at all.
Ropes of wood twisted over one another, locked in a battle for dominance, the tangled limbs growing thicker until they culminated in the base of a tree so wide, I wondered if my glowing eyes were imagining it.
It had no branches, just a trunk that had to be the width of three men. Its height had been cut short, jagged edges of bark reaching to the sky like the spires of a damaged crown.
I didn’t know this mottled tree, but Iknewthose roots as surely as I knew my own name.
It was a presumptuous conclusion. All tree roots looked the same. But it was with an innate sense of recognition that I knew these were the very roots I’d seen when themagvischanged my eyes—the same ones those tendrils of light had been about to form before I fell on my face.
This wasit.
Bruises forgotten, I slipped from Harthon’s touch and hurried to the tree. Joris and Stefano were already circling the back of the trunk.
“Nothing here.” Stefano’s voice floated around its circumference.
He stood before a gaping hole, a wide, cavernous split in the trunk that began at its foot and ended just overhead. I palmed the smooth edge and leaned my head inside.
All at once, the searing pressure in my ribs receded, winding itself back into that little, gentle kernel of warmth.
