“I was selfish when I chose you,” he murmurs, the words tumbling out like confession. His fingers tighten slightly in her hair.
“I knew loving me would cost you everything… and I kept going anyway.”
His voice softens in a way that almost undoes her.
“But if the world asks that price again?”
His thumb traces her jaw.
“This timeI’llpay it instead.” Like he already knows the debt is coming due.
He doesn’t wait for her response. Only presses a kiss to the top of her head, and pulls away. He steps forward, gripping the wheel with honed strength, and spins it open.
The metal groans in protest as he drives it inward.
Too easy.
Again.
It opens into a vast chamber carved directly into the bedrock beneath the palace, alcoves for storage cut into the stone, partitioned by crumbling stone walls.
Elyssara steps through.
It’s empty.
Or at least, it appears to be.
But that’s not what stops her.
It’s the undeniable, overpowering scent of blood and piss that lingers in the stagnant air.
Her mind snaps to the past. To her pain.
Lesara. Her mother.
The blood. Too much blood.
“Fuck,” Kael curses behind her, but he doesn’t stifle the smell. A warrior used to the stench. He pushes into the vault, eyes searching hungrily for evidence, understanding,anything.
“The Orbs…” Elyssara murmurs, confused by the emptiness. “They’re not here.”
Kael strides through the vault, eyes drinking in every alcove, scanning for answers, for danger, for rules to this godsforsaken game.
For whatever they want trapped down here.
Elyssara follows, desperately trying to figure out the snare they’ve walked into. The invitation Maireth so obviously extended.
Kael stops dead.
He doesn’t move.
Doesn’t breathe.
Just stares.
He drops to his knees, his legs buckling beneath him. His eyes are fixed on the very last alcove. Kael has faced armies without trembling. Elyssara has never seen his body fail him before now.
She runs, feet tangling in the skirts of her dress.
