However, I expected to find myself in Syleris’ dark realm. Instead, the world that materialized around me was familiar. Snow-covered trees arched overhead. A thick blanket of snow covered the ground. Ahead of me was a long, curving path.
Not just me. Us.
Garrick and Isanara were still at my sides.
We exchanged looks, but there was not much question in them. “Now we walk.”
I’d learned not to trust time within the Gates. We might have walked for an hour or only a few minutes, and it might feel like either.
A tree appeared in the middle of our path. The trunk was massive, too big around for me and Garrick to encircle it with both our arms outstretched. Carved into it was the triquetra.
Garrick paced around the perimeter of the tree and then returned. Nothing else of note, then.
“It is a witch symbol,” he said.
I nodded. “The Dark God is the creator of the witches. All of our symbols were his first.”
“What does it mean?”
I traced my finger along the curves. The intersecting lines were similar to the pentagram. But this sister symbol was gentler, less severe. It was a trick, though. It could do as much damage as the pentagram. “It symbolizes the past, present, and future.”
“Indeed,” a dark voice said.
Syleris stood between two trees at the edge of the path.
He no longer wore his Winter Tithe finery. He looked just as handsome in the severe black leathers and vest beneath his knee-length coat. But despite the night we’d spent together, the three of us, it was not my needy core that ached for him.
It was my heart.
It had not beat in nearly four centuries. But despite my lying to myself and trying to encase it in ice, it could still feel. Witches’ hearts might die, but our ability to love did not. The proof stood on either side of me. And before me.
Syleris walked to join us, his leather boots making no sound on the snow.
“In the previous gates, you faced your past. You live in the present. Now it is time to see your futures.”
“That does not sound so bad,” I fronted. But we all knew I was lying.
It could be very, very bad.
If we did not make it through the Unknown Gate. If only one of us did. If Maura and the fae king found us. We had not discussed what came after the curse was broken. It seemed foolhardy. Now, it felt like a dangerous oversight.
Garrick did not avoid Syleris’ gaze, but I did. So it was only when Isanara hissed that I realized he was looking down at my dragon.
“You will be separated from your familiar.”
I stepped in front of her. “No.”
Let him try,Isanara hissed between her fangs.
The corner of Syleris’ mouth twitched, but he managed not to show any emotion. “The terms of the Unknown Gate were set centuries ago.”
“If I could allow her to remain, I would,”he said to me alone.
I had nothing to say in return. He was not going to break any rules for me. He’d already proven that.
I turned to Garrick?—
He was gone. I reached for one of Isanara’s curved horns, but I already knew. My hand grasped at nothing.
