The words seemed to carve themselves into the air, each phrase more potent than the last. Where my blood had touched the sand, it began to glow with an eerie silver light that spread outward in spiraling patterns. The dragons' breathing grew deeper, more rhythmic, as if they were feeding power into whatever force Alaric was calling forth.
His voice rose."Morveth sil enarion, thulan mae govannen. Vex'ahlia nos draconis, silthen na vaelora."
The final words cracked like a whip across the beach, and suddenly, the sand beneath my feet felt different, charged with something that made my skin prickle.
Every hair on my body stood on end as the air itself began to thicken, pressing against my soul.
The air crackled with an energy that tasted of copper, making my teeth ache. Whatever we were about to do, whatever ritual this was, the island itself seemed to recoil from it.
Then it began.
The sand where my blood had fallen pulsed. The silver light spiraled outward in intricate patterns that seemed to follow some celestial design. The spirals widened and rose, lifting from the ground in ribbons of luminescence that twisted through the air. They moved with purpose, weaving together to form shapes like mountain ranges.
A gasp tore from my throat as heat bloomed inside my chest, just above my heart. The sensation was gentle at first, a warmth that spread through my ribs, but then it intensified.
Light—pure and silver—began to pour from my skin, streaming out of me to join the spirals dancing around us.
“It’s okay. I got you.” Arielle tightened her grip around me.
“I—"
My words cut as a map took shape before my eyes, suspended in the air like a constellation made manifest.
Glowing lines raced up to the sky and pathways pulsed. A living chart formed, showing not just where things were but where theybelonged—the hidden connections between realms, the secret roads that linked world to world.
And at the center of it all, a single point blazed brighter than the rest, calling to something deep in my soul.
I gazed, utterly mesmerized as everything solidified. The light beaming from me, the light creating the map, the light keeping the balance.
The last location shimmered in red beyond the path that led to it.
To Wolfe.
“Gods, the spell worked,” Alaric rasped. “But look…”
Bastian and Garrick lowered their arms, and the dragons ceased their flames.
The light dissipated from me, but the map remained.
Bastian came closer, inspecting the map. His face fell when he looked over the land connecting to the place where Wolfe was.
Arielle had the same unsettled look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Wolfe is in Morgäven. One of the dead realms,” Garrick explained in a low, reflective voice. “It’s an in-between plane ofexistence. The place where tortured souls lose their way because they were lost in life to some terrible fate.”
“Wolfe won’t survive there much longer if he’s injured—which we know he is,” Alaric continued. “The souls in Morgäven feed off yours until you die, then you join them. And, um… it’s also a shifting plane.”
“What in the hells does that mean?” My chest rose and fell like the waves of my fear.
“It means we can portal there, but we can’t come back the same way,” Arielle answered. “We can’t even portal from there. Magic is unstable on all shifting planes, but in a dead realm, you’d need death magic to attempt such a thing.”
“We’ll have to find another path back,” Bastian said. “But that might be difficult. We have no way of knowing where we’ll end up, or how long it might take.”
Gods. Everything was on the line here.
What a risk to take.
