He turned to me, hands on my shoulders. “Are you sure about this?”
“I have to, Finn, if there’s a chance I can find answers.”
“And if something goes wrong?” he pressed.
I was quiet for a long moment. “Then you tell everyone the truth. That I died trying to save our home.”
“Lexie—”
“There is no backup plan, Finn. Either this works or it doesn’t. But I have to try.”
He closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. “I’ll stall for as long as I can, but everyone is going to be furious when they find out what you did.”
“Don’t tell Griff.” The words were out of my mouth before I could think better of it. He was going to be so pissed at me. And I hadn’t even seen him this morning. The weight of what I was about to attempt threatened to crush me. Leaving him now, potentially for forever, when we hadn’t even given in to this thing between us, admitted what it was…
“Why?” Finn looked at me, puzzled.
I didn’t have a good explanation. “He won’t like that I put myself in danger… again,” I went with lamely.
“That’s putting it lightly.”
He stared at my face, memorizing it, and something shifted in his expression. Very slowly, as if giving me time to pull away, he moved his head toward mine.
I should have stepped back. Should have said something.Instead, I was frozen as his lips pressed gently, tenderly against mine.
It was soft. Sweet. Everything a first kiss should be.
And wrong.
Completely, utterly wrong.
Finn was wonderful and kind and had been by my side through everything these past six months, but every fiber of my being was screaming this wasn’t right. It wasn’thimI craved.
Disappointment that the wrong brother had kissed me flooded through me.
When he pulled back, hope and fear warred in his eyes. My heart broke for what I couldn’t give him.
“Good luck, Lexie,” he whispered.
With that, I stepped away from him. I couldn’t let myself think anymore. Thinking would only give me reasons to stop. The fear clenched my stomach like a fist, but I pushed it down and pulled up my soul channel, fixing my mind on where I wanted to go. On the bond of godsmother and godschild. The bond of aunt and niece. The bond of two women, two princesses, who shared the same desperate love for their homeland. Just like teleporting, I flung myself into the ether, trusting my soul channel to direct me.
I fell.
Not down, butthrough.
Through time itself, through the spaces between moments. I tumbled into nothing and kept falling. The temple disappeared, replaced by a kaleidoscope of lights that streaked past like falling stars. Some burned cold and white, while others pulsed with the warm gold I associated with the soul channel.
I focused on that channel, on Violet. I thought of nothing but her and followed the bond drawing us closer and closer together.
I fell faster, the lights dizzying in their speed. Flashes, as if they were memories, passed through me—fragments of moments that hadn’t happened yet, or happened long ago. Violet standing in the Great Hall, her face streaked with tears. Griff falling to his knees,hands pressed to his chest in pain. Valdris, dark, its stones blackened and crumbling.
Were these memories? Futures? Warnings?
I closed my eyes tight, but nothing changed. The images kept coming.
A crown, splitting into two. Finn’s face, twisted with anguish, light pouring out of him. Darkness oozing across the land, turning everything gray.
Something else moved in the chaos around me—a presence that felt familiar and wrong. Cold fingers brushed against my mind and haunting laughter rang in my ears that made my soul recoil.
