I squeezed his hand, that small touch centering me as the sun’s rays finally illuminated the wall.
The dark stone glimmered.
The air turned heavy and leaden as the entrance opened.
Daring me to try again.
I rolled my shoulders back and raised my arm. The symbols on my crown shined brighter, bouncing off the crater’s shimmer.
Beside me, Ryker held his breath as the tips of my fingers grazed the wall.
They vanished through.
I closed my eyes and sighed.
“Either the crater really likes you or really hates you,” Dax said.
“I sleep better thinking it’s just looking out for me,” I said, letting the entrance engulf my hand up to my wrist.
Cold greeted me on the other side, seeping into my skin.
Dax cracked his neck from side to side. “Let’s get this over with. The sooner we go in, the sooner we get out. Right?”
Ryker and I stepped through the barrier first.
The entrance felt as barren as when we’d left it after the first attack.
No pressure, no sucking away all the joy inside of me.
But there were no lights among the crevices.
No life.
In the deadly silence, I heard the echoes of Geryll’s screams when his leg got wounded. Next to me, the same screams tortured Ryker.
Why hadn’t the crater protected Geryll?
If Solkar’s Reach had sensed Nadya’s plan, why hadn’t it stopped him from going to war?
“That question has haunted me,” Ryker said. “I still don’t have an answer. Only a theory.”
“You know this crater best,” I said while Dax looked at us like we were insane.
“I don’t think it was reacting to Nadya’s plans,” Ryker went on. “But the heir’s. If he has part of Solkar’s Heart and using it, the crater could have sensed it. Geryll…Geryll was only a pieceof the puzzle in this heir’s plan, perhaps barely a glimmer of a thought, if that. You and your cousins are the main target.”
“It would explain why it tried to stop me from meeting Orion, as well.” I licked the inside of my cheek. “It let me pass now. And Dax.”
“Which either means you are indeed safer…”
“Or this heir found a way to trick the crater into giving us a false sense of security,” I said the words he refused to utter, even in his thoughts.
“I also sleep much better at night thinking the crater is still protecting us.” His thumb rested on the pulse point on my wrist. “And I will protect you.”
With his life.
The words he caged even in his own mind, because he knew I would protest.
But I felt.
