Sophia. Sophia isn’t safe. I can’t leave her out there. Not with Vorak. This is wrong.
I fight hard against the compulsion to follow Rythar. For a moment, I can't breathe. The Stone invades my thoughts, narrowing my world down to just Rythar and me. I hold perfectly still and glare at him, ignoring the insistent urge to follow him into his fortress.
The Stone whispers again in my mind.Everything you want and need is inside.
But I resist. I want itout. I don’t want anything twisting my thoughts.
“I won’t go in there,” I say defiantly, jabbing a finger at the fortress looming over us.
The words ring through the air. The warriors look up, all at once. None of them looks at me. They watch Rythar.
And he watches me.
“I won’t,” I say loudly, as much to the Stone in my head as to Rythar.
Rythar's brow lowers.
The light ring on my finger flickers and shoots pain up my arm. My head fills with white static that drowns out everything around us. Then it evaporates, leaving me reeling as my vision returns.
A flicker of alarm sparks in Rythar’s ember eyes. He moves to catch me, but he lets me push him away. My hand is numb. The light ring on my finger is inert. It’s left a shadow under my skin. I gasp as I realize I’ve done it. The Stone is out of my mind.
Rythar exhales slow through his nose. It does nothing to ease the danger coming off him. The muscles stand out along his neck.
His lips hover close to my ear. “Whatever gifts the Stone gave you, it will take back if you reject what binds us. The Stone gives all or nothing. As do I.”
My head swims. I sway where I stand, trying to reorient without letting Rythar touch me. Feeling returns to my hand. It throbs in time with my heart as though something vital has been burned away by the ring's touch. I’m hollow.
Rythar's massive hand closes around my wrist. He pulls me toward the fortress.
I pull back, knees locked. Refusing to walk.
Rythar lets go of my wrist, turns back, and stands there like I’m the only thing in the world not already bending to his will.
I don’t want to look in his eyes, but I can’t make myself look back at the jungle. I know what’s there. How the jungle answers to him.
Rythar’s eyes narrow. “Come.” His voice is firm and quiet.
I cross my arms. “No.”
The guards flinch as the vines near my feet twitch.
Shit.
I would rather rot here than be led into that fortress while I know Sophia is out there, suffering. But it won’t be enough. If will were enough, I would never have left New Terra.
"Do you wish to die?" he asks. The tone isn't cruel. It's confused, like he can't fathom why someone would refuse shelter. Would refuse him. I shake my head.
"You are alive because of me," he says. He frowns, catches himself, tries again. “You are safe because of me."
This is his biome. His law.
I scowl up at him. I gesture back at the jungle. At the warriors around us. “Is that what you call this? Safety?”
He doesn’t blink. “Yes.”
We stare each other down in a challenge that I don’t know how to win. His body is built for war. Every line screams that he could end this with a single movement. But he doesn’t. His jaw muscles work once, then he speaks.
“You have nowhere to go.”
