“There you are,” I said aloud, feeling him.
Eyes open, I followed the tug toward him through the dark, having to pull aside the never-ending curtains of magic that got heavier and heavier as the sound neared, until finally I’d pulled the last one back.
Light flooded my vision, temporarily blinding me. As I blinked away the light blindness, the blurred impressions I got was some sort of dome-like chamber. Vision clearing, I stepped into the room, my knees nearly buckling at the sight.
Terror stole my ability to move. To breathe. To look away.
There, suspended in mid-air, was Endymion’s limp, lifeless form.
It’d be a misnomer to say he waschained up. No, that would’ve been preferable to the floating bands of molten gold that had burned his wrists to the wick as spread his arms up and out. I took in a ragged breath as I noticed his shoulder joints were at awkward angles, like they’d long since given up on holding their form.
Trembling, I took a step closer, still not fully believing what was right in front of me.
Shirtless, sweat poured down his chest.
Hot tears pricked my eyes as I held back a sob, my hand now over my mouth.
Twinned golden bands had gnawed through the flesh of his ankles, his feet dangling above a sphere filled with glittering white flecks that were sparsely interlaced with shimmering black ones.
I fell to my knees before the sphere, my heart dropping as understanding crashed into me. As if in answer, another drop of Endymion’s beautiful onyx essence pooled at the tip of his toe, then let go. Gravity pulled it onto the sphere, which seemed to relish in its touch as it absorbed the offering.
Like a flurry of snow, the inner portion of the globe came to life as the new speck of black was swallowed by the fray.
This sphere—whatever it was—was slowly siphoning Endymion’s life force.
Already knowing what I’d find if I looked up, I held my breath, forcing myself to take in the evidence of this truth. As I took in Endymion’s form, I wondered if this raw helplessness was what Artton felt when he saw my emaciated body—for as frail as I was in the living world, Endymion had paid the toll in this one.
Paid the toll.
Hadn’t he used those words before when he’d explained his cost to the Mother? I looked down to my wrist to find the bargain marked on my flesh as bright as ever, and I knew then what was happening—to both of us.
Moving out of instinct, I lifted my palm and made to place it on the sphere.
Endymion’s head snapped up, eyes wild with panic. “No!”
A band of black wrapped around my torso and wrenched me away.
“Endymion!” I screamed.
I reached out for him in vain, ripped backward through memories so fast that I had to close my eyes against the overwhelming amount of information being thrown my way.
Eventually, the feeling of being pulled backward subsided, and I risked a glance to find I’d been deposited into the memory of a massive cavern.
I stood, taking it all in.
Had cavern’s magnitude not been so vast, I might have mistaken it for the sacred cavern Caius had brought me to as a human.
“I’m sorry,” Endymion said from my side, drawing my attention to him.
My brows furrowed. “For what?”
His throat bobbed, and his eyes held something deep and broken in them that had me taking a half-step back as if I already knew that whatever it was, my world was about to crumble again.
“For what?” I said again, only this time the words were demanding.
“Please believe me when I say that I wanted to be the one to tell you, Nyla. I never wanted you to find out his way.”
“Endymion, you’re scaring me.”
