Page 265 of Blade of the Nightking

"But?"

“It doesn't feel like mine.” I picked at the seam of my trousers. “It feels like... something looking through my eyes. Something wearing my body. It strips everything away, and... and I want it to. I want it to take over, Rìan. I used to fear it, but now—now I just want to be... numb.”

The understanding in his eyes was almost unbearable.

"That night in Illyra," I said, swallowing past the lump in my throat, "you brought me back. When you said… when you said⁠—"

He stiffened. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," I said quickly. "I know why you said it. And I'm very grateful you did."

His lips pressed together.

“It wants to take over. It wants me to mate—so it can be passed on. Because I feel too much, all the time. It knows I’m weak.”

He shook his head. "Your heart isn't a weakness, Eidra. It's your greatest strength."

I snorted, but he remained unmoved.

"Why else would your magic fight so desperately to consume it?" he continued. "Why else would it swell to such impossible power after feeding from it?"

His eyes lifted to mine, and my heart stumbled at what I saw there. He looked… destroyed. “It's an irony, isn't it?” His voice was low, ragged. “It despises you... and yet it wants you all the same.”

As though on cue, the sea changed its song. The surf crashed one final time before the tide began to ebb, the sea drawing back over the smooth sand in a long, whispering sigh, like fine silk slipping between gentle fingers. Inch by inch, the seabed emerged from the shallows, broken only by wave-smoothed rocks and strings of seaweed. It drew back, further and further from the base of the cliff, unveiling the narrow, shadowed mouth of a cave that, only moments earlier, had belonged to the ocean.

Rìan rose slowly to his feet, but made no move toward it. He stood staring at the dark opening for a long moment, something almost pained passing over his face before he lowered his gaze.

Then his expression hardened, the cold, unreadable mask of the Dark Prince settling back into place. “Let’s go.”

I nodded and tugged on my boots without a word. We set off together, but the sand seemed heavier beneath my feet than it had before, pulling at my boots as though I were wading through mud.

I told myself that was why every step toward the cave seemed harder than the last.

CHAPTER 55

The passage was barely wide enough for the two of us to walk abreast, forcing Rìan ahead of me as we followed the dripping tunnel deeper beneath the cliffs.

The farther we ventured, the tighter my chest became. Every instinct I possessed strained toward the entrance behind us, urging me to turn and flee. I could feel the hum of magic against my skin, raising gooseflesh along my arms. It hung in the air around us with an ancient, watchful awareness.

My hand closed around the hilt of my bone knife.

It was warm.

Not from my body, but from within itself, as though it could sense where we were and had awakened in anticipation.

The tunnel suddenly surrendered to an enormous circular chamber. Wan light filtered through openings high overhead, washing over smooth, curving walls too perfect to have been shaped by time or tide. Nature hadn't carved this place—magic had.

Though the cave flooded with seawater every day, no algae coated the stone. No barnacles clung to the walls. And at the center of the space, stark and bare as though no living thing dared touch it, sat the second well.

It was every bit as immense as the first, a great hole punched through the world, its shaft plunging into profound blackness.

Painted high across the far wall, an enormous eight-pointed star bore down on the chamber like an unblinking eye, what remained of its pigment darkened by untold centuries to a flaking brown.

“The Vein makes the tide unpredictable here. We need to hurry,” Rìan murmured, his voice rising through the chamber before echoing back to us.

Hurry… hurry… hurry…

Rìan strode straight to the well. An old wooden bucket lay half-buried in the wet sand beside it, knocked onto its side by the sea's comings and goings. He crouched down, testing the slick rope looped around the handle before tugging at the knot fastened to the rusted hook on the well's edge.