“It was an accident,” Garrick said, gesturing up at the crumbled remains of the orange and white painted arch. “Balar Shan was not built for this kind of cold. It is crumbling around us.”
Alize’s face was grim. “This was no accident. The gods are warning us. It is time to return to the Seven Gates.”
CHAPTER 35
KORYN
I thoughtI’d feel some relief returning to the Seven Gates. They were my purpose. Lifting Velora’s curse meant regaining my place in my coven and saving my family. Except I no longer wanted to return to my coven, and I was increasingly convinced that the curse being lifted would not save Velora. Not the humans, at least.
If I lifted the curse, plants would grow again. The birth rate would recover. Kyrelle and her father would fish the sea and find their nets full for the first time in more than three centuries. But the fae would regain their magic, and the witches their full power. Covens would return, and Maura would reign as not just the head witch of the Midnight Coven, but the head witch of all covens in Velora.
At least Maura and the fae king could not enter the temple. The only ones allowed in were supplicants who had passed through the previous five gates. Alize, Garrick, and I. Isanara stayed by my side. Even Varian, the priestess who had let me be kidnapped after the Memory Gate, did not dare to try to separate me from my familiar. She answered to the gods, and the Dark God was among that pantheon. Finally, he was of some use to me.
“I shall remember that the next time you beg for release.”
I ignored that comment, and the shiver that it sent through my stomach and then lower. The Dark God had not appeared to me physically since our last encounter. This was the first time he’d mentioned that what had passed between us might not be an isolated incident.
A dark chuckle caressed my mind.“You will be my wife.”
“Arranged marriages do not require consummation,”I shot back. It was rare that I got a thought together and aimed it back at him before he could simply read my mind. But I did not get even a second to revel in my accomplishment before?—
“Ours does.”
If the conversation was meant to distract me from the gate lingering ahead, it failed in the next moment. The Peace Gate looked anything but peaceful. We’d left the temple in a single file line, just like every gate before. Varian in the lead, then Alize, me, Garrick, and the acolyte, Tomin, in the rear.
Of all the gates, it most resembled the Mercy Gate, situated in the heart of the continent, at the center of the divine spiral, in the old capital of Canmar. Just like then, the temple was behind us. Though instead of the dilapidated city, it sat at the base of the mountains. And instead of a wall of ice, there was a wall of rock. At least this time I didn’t have to climb it.
An iron gate covered the entrance to the cave. It was as tall as the nine-sided temple behind us, and just as wide. Inside awaited Pava, the second of the doomed lovers, the Goddess of Peace.
I wondered what sort of terms she was on with the Dark God. Ramkael and Xyta, the twins, had appeared together at the Devotion Gate. Was there any chance that the lover herself, Pava, would take pity on me as the bargained, bonded lover of the Dark God?
“I cannot interfere.”
Was that regret in his voice? A slight wobble on the first word? I expected him to laugh into my mind and deny it. But the Dark God was silent. I was on my own, once again.
Varian came to a stop, the rest of us mirroring her like well-behaved ducklings. Another creature eaten into extinction by Velora’s desperation. Isanara wove between my legs. Pants had appeared in my wardrobe in Balar Shan. I was thankful for them. A much warmer, much larger, hand encased my own. Garrick.
I was not alone. Not anymore.
Which made what was about to happen even more dangerous. If I died, so did Garrick. So would his mother. Kyrelle would have no hope. Isanara… I hoped she would live on without me. But I’d never known a witch with a familiar, let alone one who’d lost one. Isanara was an ancient, magical species in her own right. She was a child. She would choose to survive.Live, I willed her.
No one is dying today, she huffed into my mind.
Varian wasted no time with pleasantries. She’d already paraded us around inside the temple to give thanks at each of the altars to the gods.
“You enter in the order you stand,” she said. Then she stepped back, Tomin moving as her shadow.
There was nothing for me to do but watch. Alize didn’t hesitate. Of the three of us, she was the only one who’d entered the Seven Gates for no purpose but her own. Garrick had told me—the second-born child of every fae family must attempt the Seven Gates. Garrick was technically the second-born, after Margeaux. But Alize was the second-born legitimate child of her house, and entering the gate was a declaration of her claim, her place in the line of succession, her place in the world.
Only one person had ever made it to where we stood now. No one had ever successfully conquered the Peace Gate. It was verylikely that one—or all—of us would not live to see the end of this day.
My stomach flipped. A cold breeze lifted my hair away from my shoulder. I did not shiver.
I watched with Garrick’s hand around mine and Isanara’s horns pressing into my thigh as Alize approached the Peace Gate. It swung open without her touch, and she disappeared beneath the mountain.
What would we face in the Peace Gate? Of all the gates, it was the one that seemed most foreign. Even the Unknown Gate scared me less; I did not understand the Dark God, but I knew his face. I was alive because of his power. But peace? I’d never felt peace in my life, living or dead.
“You have a visitor,” Garrick breathed against the shell of my ear.
