“What if we at least try?” Ryker said suddenly.
I gaped at him. “To trap everyone down there?”
Because there was no way, in this life or another, that I was leaving him and the warriors to face certain death alone.
“No.” He grabbed my hand, pulling toward his family’s alcove. “To summon.”
Chapter 80
Allie
We charged through the corridors, passing coffins guarded by the statues carved onto the lids. Warriors with mighty swords, elders with staffs and beards that reached their toes, a woman with a cradled newborn resting on her stomach.
They all tugged on my attention as we hurried through the marble archway. Solkar’s Rays didn’t pulse through the red, spidering veins anymore.
The sculpture of the falling star stared down at us as imposing as last time.
On its sides, Ryker’s ancestors rested in their coffins, his mother’s sculpture grasping a broadsword to her chest.
Three alcoves away, a new marble casket had been inserted, the stone still white and smelling like fresh earth.
Geryll.
His statue smiled, shield clutched in one hand, a book in the other.
My breath hitched as I kept staring at him, fighting the urge to reach out and touch his marble cheek.
Ryker held on tighter to my hand, reassuring and grounding.
The stone table in the center of the crypt lit up, the reflection of the flames licking the ceiling.
Through their shadowy dance, I noticed a statue that still lay there half-finished, its creation halted by the invasion.
The legs and one side of his torso and face had been sculpted, the rest was still a block of stone. I recognized that mighty jaw even in death.
“Vylkor,” I breathed out.
“That alcove had been reserved for Nadya,” Ryker said. “It’s his now, for all eternity.”
With that, he thundered his fist against the center of the table.
The flames grew taller as the star’s largest ray fractured.
The wall gaped open, sliding to the side with an ancient, otherworldly groan.
Metallic, icy air filled the room, cooling my parched skin.
A chill raced down my spine as we approached the opening, hands intertwined, hearts beating fast.
The same awestruck feeling as before took hold of me. But, this time, there was no hum.
No crystallized heartbeat.
“Are you ready?” Ryker asked.
No. “Yes.”
He huffed a shaky laugh. “I can tell when you’re lying now.”
