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“We can and we will,” Tristan said, voice rough. He gripped the handle of his sword with both hands before stepping up beside Ollie.

“Aye,” said Thraigg, spinning his hatchet in his hand. “Two for each of us. More than fair, I’d say.”

Cedric looked at the trio, a lump forming in this throat.

“Tits up, Ric,” Tristan called over his shoulder. “You’re king of the realm. Go and get your girl.”

Cedric ran, turning his head to see Ollie release the walls of water with a thunderous war cry the instant he was through. They collapsed in a wave that knocked the enemy cultists off their feet, and the three of them ran forward.

The toes of Cedric’s boots touched the rough edge of the crater.

The abyss yawned before him, nothing but endless black, a hollow void. No light, no sound, no sign of where the bottom might be—or if there even was one at all.

It was his worst nightmare.

But his every dream was already down there, already fighting.

He would fight for her too.

So, breath hitching, Cedric hooked himself onto their shimmering, golden bond and followed Elyria into the dark.

55

A CHOICE OFFERED

ELYRIA

The wind screamed in Elyria’s ears as she fell, plunging into darkness. She flailed for several heartbeats, her eyes locked on the gaping maw of the crater above her, her mind still caught on Jocelyn’s final goodbye, on the look on her father’s face when he’d thrown her into the void.

Not in vain, she thought. It cannot be in vain.

She twisted in midair, her staff—Jocelyn’s final gift—still clutched tight in her hand as she flared her wings and caught a current beneath them. For a single, sustained moment, Elyria floated there, letting her eyes adjust to the dark. It was like being in a long, vertical tunnel. The rocky walls surrounding her were flecked with specks of white crystal and interspersed with veins of luminous silver. And then she was soaring downward again, and the tunnel widened, the walls falling away, pouring into a vast cavern—a grotto at the center of the world.

Here, it was not dark.

Here, brilliant turquoise mana ran in a thick torrent across the ground, rushing, churning, bubbling. A river of magic.

The Line of Origin.

Rocks floated above it, pebbles and boulders and wide, vein-streaked platforms made of stone, suspended at varying heights in the air. Like this entire place had its own sense of gravity, its own magnetic pull. They drifted back and forth, caught in the swell of the waves of magic ebbing and flowing from the Line.

Elyria felt it too.

Felt the sheer power here.

It had her wild magic stuttering in her veins, the sunfyre kindling by her heart flickering. It peeled away her protections, her defenses, turning her armor back into skittering, misting shadows—uncontrolled and awestruck.

The magic veiling the crown on her head was unwoven, and an echo ran through the gilded circlet, making Elyria shiver.

It knew this place.

It came from this place.

All magic did.

And Elyria knew with a strange sort of certainty that if she was not careful, if she did not keep her wits about her, the tide would pull her under.

She could not let it.