He pauses at the edge of the table.
“You saved my granddaughter when her grandfather could not. That is the debt.”
The gold in the walls blazes. Full white. The table vibrates beneath my hands.
It is done.
The light fades. The room stills.
“Bring your bondmate,” Lanthar says. “Bring my granddaughter. The courts convene at the turning of the stone. You have three risings to prepare.”
He walks through a passage that opens at his approach and seals behind him.
I’m alone in the deep chamber.
The shadows under my skin are quiet.
I stand. The chair recedes into the floor.
I crossed that square without understanding why. A Fae king just told me he was watching. That the barrier he built held against him while she was chained to a pyre. In a room where lying is impossible.
I follow the corridor up. The bond thickens with every step, presence returning in inches, until by the time I reach the chamber threshold she is full against my chest again.
The wall opens as I near it. She’s already standing. I cross to her. I don’t slow down.
Her hands come up and she takes my face between them, her thumbs at my cheekbones, and her eyes find mine.
I bring my forehead to hers.
“Whatever it is,” she says quietly, “you don’t have to carry it tonight.”
She turns her head a fraction, presses her cheek to mine.
The convening can wait.
I lower my mouth to hers.
She rises into the kiss without hesitation, the way she meets everything else.
When she breaks it, her hands move from my face to my chest. Pressed over the mark. The crescent pulses against her palm.
Chapter
Eleven
The nausea wakes me before Maximus does.
His hand is on my hip. My hand is on his chest. The mountain is humming, and my stomach is trying to climb out through my mouth. This isn’t the brief roll that passes in seconds. This one settles in and stays, a low persistent press behind my sternum that doesn’t crest and doesn’t fade. I sit on the edge of the bed and breathe through it, one hand pressed flat to the living stone, waiting for the room to stop tilting.
The Lithenmere’s magic has been building since we arrived. Every hour inside this mountain, the ambient saturation increases. My body is still calibrating to it.
Apparently it’s my stomach.
I stand. The room steadies. The nausea doesn’t leave entirely but it drops to a level I can work around. I’ve fought through worse.
I dress in the Lithenmere’s provided fabrics. The stone wall opens a passage to the bathing chamber without being asked.The mountain is getting to know my routine. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
When I step into the main corridor, Seraphina is waiting.
