I stepped beneath a half-buried stone arch, then tripped, barely catching myself before I went to my knees.
“Woah.” Raihn grabbed my arm. “Easy. What was that?”
Mother, my hand hurt. My head spun. The ground felt as if it was, very literally, tilting, to the point where I wanted to turn to him and say, Really? You don’t feel that?
I glanced down at my hand.
The black stones in my ring, and my bracelet, now glowed—an uncanny black light, wisps of shadow that brightened to rings of moonlight. But whatever I was feeling drew from deeper than the jewelry that sat at the surface of my skin. Like my blood itself was calling to…
To…
Raihn called after me as I pulled away from his grasp and stumbled down the path.
My eyes fell to a single fixed point ahead.
The door blended in so thoroughly with everything around it, partially submerged in the sand, hidden in the shadows of the tipped-over columns and shattered rocks. In any other circumstances, I probably would have passed right by it, oblivious to what was right under my feet.
Now, my entire being pulled me to that spot, even though every step hurt—like some invisible power was ripping me apart to get at whatever lurked under my skin.
“It’s here,” I said.
Raihn stopped beside me. He didn’t question me. He touched the stone, then yanked his fingers away.
“Ix’s fucking tits,” he hissed, cradling his hand—bubbling burns now marking his fingertips.
I unsheathed one of my blades and opened a shallow cut across my palm, then reached for the door.
“Wait—” he said.
But I didn’t hesitate.
I gasped when my skin touched the slab. For a moment, I lost my grip on the world.
I am the King of the Nightborn, in possession of something that no living being should ever possess. I thought that holding such a thing would make me feel powerful, but instead I feel smaller than ever.
Beside me, she leans close. Her eyes are white and milky, her goddess’s magic coursing through her. She looks otherworldly when she does this—beautiful in a way that frightens me.
She touches the door—
I pulled my palm away.
When I opened my eyes, the stone door was gone. In its place was a tunnel of darkness. Goosebumps rose over my skin, already reacting to the magic of whatever lurked within.
“Every shred of my being is screaming not to let you go down there,” Raihn said.
Every shred of mine was beckoning me closer.
“This is it,” I said.
I’d doubted the existence of Septimus’s god blood before. And maybe whatever my parents had hidden in this cave might not be blood, but I now found it hard to believe it was anything but touched by the gods. No one who felt this could deny it.
This wasn’t of this world.
Raihn reached for the door, but I slapped his hand away.
“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” I snapped. “You can’t go in there.”
He grimaced, glancing at his burnt fingertips, recognizing the truth even if he didn’t like it.
“So what? You go down alone?”
“We always knew that would be a possibility.”
I stared into the abyss. A slow, cold fear wrapped around my heart.
Fear is a collection of physical responses, I told myself.
Even though the darkness before me was frightening in a way that seemed so much bigger than a few fangs.
For a moment, it boggled me that those were my biggest problems, a year ago.
Raihn was getting ready to argue with me. I knew what that looked like by now. But just as he opened his mouth, his eyes flicked up to the sky.
“Fuck,” he murmured.
Something about his face told me exactly what I was going to see when I turned around. And yet, when I did, the sight of the wave of Rishan and Bloodborn warriors, emerging from the clouds and over the terrain in a seemingly-endless tide, still made me stop breathing.
There were just so many of them.
The army I had just been so relieved to see now seemed so pathetically small. We had been so worn down, fighting with the loyal fragments of forces cobbled together into something that had to be—Goddess, needed to be—enough.
I needed to believe it would be enough.
I whirled back to Raihn. His jaw was set, brow low over his eyes, the shadows making them seem redder than ever.
I knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth.
“You go,” he said. “I’ll hold them off with the others.”
Now I understood how he must have felt when I told him I’d go into this tunnel alone, because every part of me screamed in protest at that sentence. The impulse to stop him, to beg him not to go up against the man who had almost killed him, was briefly overwhelming.