“We have to. There’s no way back,” he told me.
I peered behind us, following his gaze, and nearly burst into tears. The bridge that had gotten us here was gone. Dust. I began to hyperventilate a little, dizziness washing over me.
Kaelric’s hands cupped my face. He forced me to look at him.
“I can get you through this. You have to trust me. We finish this together or not at all.”
Together or not at all resonated deep in my spirit. I wasn’t ready fornot at all. I wasn’t ready for the black abyss of death.
“I trust you,” I told him, and I meant it with every fiber of my being. Something that scared me.
He nodded and released my face.
“Let me go first,” he said, already swinging up.
I followed, every muscle in my body screaming.
The cold bit into my fingers as I grabbed the first bar, my arms already trembling from the wall climb, the fire dodging, the frost and oil-shrouded wall. My palms were raw as I moved hand over hand behind him.
The monkey bars stretched out over a pit so dark I couldn’t see the bottom. Just mist and the faint, pulsing glow of the crystal on the finish line.
Ten rungs in, my grip started to slip. I blinked hard, and tears still spilled over. Not from pain, from frustration. From the heat of failure blooming behind my ribs.
I can’t.
The words pushed against my teeth.
“I can’t do this,” I whimpered.
My fingers slipped.
“Brynn,” Kaelric’s voice cut through the fog. It was sharp and commanding.
“Don’t let go!” he shouted.
I sobbed, just once, and hung there, arms burning.
“I can’t?—”
He was already moving.
In one impossible motion, he swung backward to me, hung by one arm, and caught me around the waist with the other.
His palm pressed against my lower back, pulling me flush against his chest.
“I’ve got you,” he breathed into my hair. “Let go.”
The bond between us thrummed so hard I thought it might snap. His heartbeat pounded against my spine. His breath was hot against my neck.
I trusted him. I trusted him with my life.
I nodded and let go.
He adjusted, just slightly, and I instinctively hooked my legs around his hips, arms around his neck.
A blush crawled up my neck. Straddling him mid-air was not how I’d planned to finish this trial.
But Kaelric didn’t flinch as I let go. He took my full weight, and then with a low grunt, he swung forward again, carrying both our weight, arm over arm, his body a steel machine beneath me.
