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The beam of light shone ahead of us, pointing to a flight of stairs across the room that ascended up and up, the top reaching higher than we could see.
“We’re going to live in this mountain forever, aren’t we?” Draven complained.
I turned around and kissed him. “I could think of worse people to be stuck with.”
He grimaced. “Small comfort when we run out of food.”
“Perhaps the grail can lead us to that, too.” Then I shuddered, remembering what else the grail had done. And what it might find acceptable as a food source.
“It won’t come to that,” Draven said, looking down at me. He turned back to look at the pool. “I’m going to trust its serenity while accepting that, like everything else in this place, it could be a lie. Let’s camp here and move on tomorrow.”
We ate and then lay down beside one another.
It was only when I had started to close my eyes that the gleam of the grail caught my gaze one last time and I realized something.
I had slept the night before, wrapped in Draven’s arms. But I had not dreamed.
My father had not invaded my mind, though I had been unshielded.
My heart thudded. What did it mean?
Perhaps he had given up. Stopped trying to batter his way into my true dreamings. Or perhaps it had been a rare reprieve. He had been distracted by something else or had forgotten.
Or was it the place? The mountain had recognized me, opened for me. The grail led me. Could one of those things somehow be shielding me now as we traveled to what I hoped would be the heart of my father’s court?
Draven was already dozing. I listened to his breathing until I was sure he was fully asleep, then carefully sat up and, pulling away from him, crawled over to the edge of the pool and leaned against it.
I sat awake there the rest of the night.
CHAPTER 33 - MORGAN
We had gone down. Now we traveled up.
In the morning, we climbed flight after flight of winding stairs, leading up and away from the tranquil pool until, by about noon, we seemed to have reached a new area inside of the mountain.
Torches glowed along the walls in every room and every corridor, burning without flame and without end.
The mysterious new illuminations were welcomed. We had become so used to the grail as our only light source.
The rooms here were constructed in a smaller style with lower ceilings—still higher than any mortals made but low enough that we could finally glimpse their vaulted tops.
After a few hours of this, the grail’s beam of light led us out onto a parapet that bordered a vast chasm. We followed along the edge of the low wall until we came to a place where a long, wide bridge jutted out over the chasm. Immense stone arches spanned it in sections, above and below, supporting the weight of the monumental construction.
Far on the other side, we could see a fortress carved from stone. A new region of the mountain. My heart hammered. Was my father’s court on the other side?
Great iron doors marked the way in.
The beam shone straight along the stone bridge.
There were no guardrails this time.
“At least there’s no breeze,” Draven observed, catching my gaze. “No air, no wind, no breeze.”
I looked down at the chasm sourly. “Truly, we are blessed. That’s the last thing I’ll be thinking as I fall to my death. Thank the Three there was no wind.”
He laughed. “Ready?”
But there was a worried look in his eyes as he grasped my hand. Turning it over, he raised it to his lips and kissed my palm lightly. “We can always hold hands as we walk across.”
