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The surrounding air thickens, charged with magic old enough to set my teeth aching and the Silver in my blood singing.
Beside me, Amalia straightens, her head tilting as if listening to voices only she can hear. She steps forward, approaching the fissure with her palm extended.
I catch her wrist. “Do not touch it until we are ready to enter.”
She blinks as if coming out of a daze. “Right.”
This close to the rift, the magic calls out to her louder than my Silver power can withstand, and the Opal veins spread across every inch of her face, creeping down her neck and arms in forked patterns.
Soon, even my glamour will fail to hide the truth of her transformation from the others. Already, the Dark guards murmur among themselves, hands tightening on weapons as their attention shifts between her and the fissure.
“Stand ready,” I command, directing my words to Thalindor but pitching my command for all to hear. “We enter on Amalia Wolf’s signal.”
“We need to hold hands,” she says, extending her fingers toward me. “The court is eager for me to enter. If you’re touching me, you’re more likely to come through intact.”
I have always chosen duty. Today, for the first time in centuries, I choose to follow this mortal witch who has stolen my heart.
Without hesitation, I take her hand, her skin cool beneath my fingers but free of the frozen chill from earlier. A pulse of Silver and Opal moves through our joined palms, the two magics mingling as they fight for dominance.
“Thalindor.” I extend my other hand to my guard, who clasps it firmly.
The guards form a chain behind us, Thalindor to a Dark guard, then another, until we become a living bridge with Kelaros at the far end. Only Nyctarian remains separate, watching from a distance with his arms crossed over his chest.
“You will not join us?” I call to him.
The Dark King’s lips curl into a humorless smile. “Unlike you, I will not risk my throne by leaving my seat empty.”
The barb strikes true.
A king does not abandon his sithe to pursue a single life, no matter how precious. Nyctarian remains because his people require him here. If this mission fails, the Dark Sithe can endure the loss of the warriors he sends through the rift. His own death could leave his Princes struggling to hold a realm none are strong enough to anchor.
He cannot gamble his sithe on the hope that one of them will prove equal to the task.
Neither should I.
Every law of kingship, every duty I have upheld for centuries, demands I remain behind as Nyctarian does.
I am going anyway.
Nyctarian has made the choice duty demands.
I have chosen my brother.
Amalia’s grip tightens on mine, drawing my attention back to her. “Here we go again.”
She raises our joined hands toward the fissure, and the barrier splits at her touch, light pouring through the opening. The fissure widens, edges peeling back to reveal a tunnel of pure crystal that stretches beyond sight. The air rushes past us, pulling inward with the force of a tide returning to sea.
“Hold fast,” I shout as the pull intensifies, threatening to tear our chain apart.
Amalia steps forward into the light, tugging me with her. Reality warps around us, colors inverting, sound stretching into meaningless vibrations.
I look back at Thalindor, and my stomach drops as I catch a distorted reflection in the shield he bears, a narrow, angular head with glass shards for teeth.
The glasscrawler.
It vanishes the moment I focus on it, but before I can give warning, we’re falling, tumbling through crystal corridors where every surface reflects our passage a thousand times over.
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