Aisling stops in front of one cell. Her hand rises, fingers curling around the bars.
“This one.” The words are barely a whisper. “This was mine.”
I look inside. Stone bench for a bed. Bucket in the corner. Chains bolted to the wall at exactly the right height to hold a woman’s arms above her head. And on the floor, dark stains that form a pattern leading toward the door—toward the channels that would have carried her blood away.
Three weeks. She spent three weeks in this hole while they bled her dry.
“Aisling.”
She doesn’t respond. Her knuckles have gone white around the bars.
I reach out. Slowly. Carefully. My hand covers hers, and for a moment, I feel her flinch—a tiny recoil that breaks something in my chest. But she doesn’t pull away. Her fingers shift beneath mine, and then she’s holding on. Gripping tight enough that I can feel her pulse racing against my palm.
“I’m here.” The words feel inadequate. Everything feels inadequate in the face of this. “Whatever you’re remembering, you’re not there anymore. You’re here. With me.”
Her breathing steadies. One count. Two. Three.
“You’re right.” She releases the bars. Her hand stays in mine. “I’m here. And I’m not leaving until I get what I came for.”
We move on.
THIRTEEN
AISLING
The heat hits first.
A wall of warmth that pushes back against us as we descend deeper into the mountain, carrying the sulfur-and-ash scent of volcanic activity. The temperature climbs with every step, sweat beading along my hairline, my shirt sticking to my back.
But it’s not the heat that makes my blood sing.
It’s the pull.
Something in my chest responds to this place—a resonance I can’t explain, as if the fire in my veins recognizes something ahead. The sensation grows stronger with every step, tugging at me like an invisible thread, and I have to fight the urge to break into a run.
The Relic. It’s calling to me.
Rurik’s hand tightens on mine. He feels it too—I can see it in the way his jaw clenches, the way his nostrils flare as if scenting danger.
“Aisling.” His voice is rough. “Your fire.”
I look down. Flames lick at my free hand, dancing across my knuckles without burning. I didn’t summon them. Didn’t even feel them kindle.
My fire is responding to something ahead. Something that wants to wake it.
I close my fist, smothering the flames. Focus on the clinical details. The temperature gradient. The composition of the volcanic rock. The structural integrity of the corridor walls. Anything to keep my mind anchored in the present instead of spiraling into?—
The corridor ends.
A massive chamber opens before us, carved from the mountain’s center. The ceiling disappears into darkness far overhead, but the floor?—
The floor is a volcanic pit with steam as thick as smoke rising.
Molten rock churns far below, casting everything in hellish orange light. Chains of solidified lava crisscross the pit, massive links thick as tree trunks, stretching from wall to wall in a web of impossible construction. The heat is staggering, pressing against my skin like a physical weight.
The smoke parts like a curtain.
She doesn’t step through it—shemanifests. One moment empty air, the next a figure standing before the volcanic pit as if she’s always been there. A projection, I realize dimly. The chains still hold her true form somewhere in that churning darkness, but she’s pushed enough of herself through to take shape.
