“What the fuck was all of that? What did you find down there?” says Quinn, leaning on her cane for support.
“When we get back,” says Ronan, his eyes meeting mine, his feelings searching to see if I’ve changed my perspective at all on our situation.
I don’t know what to think, but it seems like I don’t have to decide right now. The altar from our vision should be just behind us, but I see nothing on the flat surface where the temple once stood, nothing but the same dusty ground we walked months ago when we first came here.
Ronan whistles loudly once, and the griffins fly to meet us.
I hesitate before I approach Kira. If I’m going to have to walk away from him for the good of the world, being in Ronan’s arms for the hours of the flight back isn’t going to help matters any. Feeling him against me drives me half wild under the worst of conditions.
But now? With all of this power flowing between us? With the golden threads of fate pulling taut, tying me to him beyond all the powers of this world and the worlds beyond?
Maybe it is inevitable. Maybeweare inevitable.
Because all I know is that when he holds his hand out for me to help me up, I can’t refuse him.
I don’t want to.
It’s late by the time we land. We should take our things to the castle, but I don’t want to go there right now, not until I’ve had a chance to talk to Ronan privately.
We find the others still in the other cottage anyway, Taran still too weak to move.
“Are you going to tell us what happened?” asks Quinn as we land near the well.
“In the morning,” I say, asking her and Seth to keep guard during the night.
When the door to our cottage closes behind us, Ronan asks a similar question. “Should we…should we talk about it? Try to figure out what it all means? Maybe if we go over the papers again, it’ll be clear—”
We barely spoke on the way back. I didn’t have the energy for it, and even if I did, I didn’t know what there was to say.
“In the morning,” I say again. I’m completely exhausted, and he can barely even stand. We’re too tired to even wash before collapsing into bed.
“Can I hold you?” Ronan asks, his voice quiet.
I take his arm and drape it over me, and he curls up against me, holding me close.
It’s incredibly comforting being in his arms in spite of everything. Feeling his warmth and weight behind me, listening to him breathe. He strokes gentle circles on my stomach, his touch soothing and intimate.
And yet, as tired as I am and as comforted as I feel, I don’t fall asleep for a long time.
I lie there trying to find a way to convince myself this doesn’t have to be the end for us.
Maybe Ronan’s right, and the answers are there in all of our research. Maybe there’s a way for us to wield this power for the good of the world. Maybe the prophecy isn’t literal; the first parts of it were certainly abstract. Maybe the entire thing is meant to be taken as an allegory.
Or maybe it isn’t true at all. From our research, it’s unclear where the prophecy even originated. Some say an oracle in the first century; others claim a vision given to Queen Julia by Vayla herself. Ronan has never seen or spoken to Vayla, so that seems unlikely. He doesn’t believe in the majority of what the Codex says anyway, let alone some apocrypha that was struck from every book and parchment in the world.
And yet…it’s impossible to deny the power that flows between us. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt, unlike anything I’ve ever heard of, even. It is extraordinary in every sense of the word.
And the dreams. If none of it is real, how could we possibly have the same dream? Thatmustbe some kind of magic.
Or maybe we’re going insane. Maybe the stress of trying to find a way to retake Faros has gotten to us, and all the time we’ve spent together has led to shared delusions—
No. I know that isn’t true. There isdefinitelysomething magical at work here, and possibly something supernatural. The question isn’t if it’s real.
The question is what it means.
In the morning, I find Ronan at the table, shuffling papers and making frantic notes, his ordinarily perfect script gone messy in his rush.
“Look at this,” he says, handing me Seth’s palimpsest.
