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That damn insult again.
“Fatewanted us together,” I spat. “Iwanted you.”
His body went still.
Statue-still.
I ripped his hands off my face, and when I pushed him away, he took a step back.
Deep-seated hurt and long-simmering fury warred within me as I stalked toward the cave. Though I couldn’t hear Teris behind me, I didn’t think he’d just watch me walk away.
His heart had to be beating at least half as quickly as mine, and mine was moving so fast it felt like it was about to pound right through my ribs and out of my damn chest.
I lit my hand on fire with the magic boiling in my veins as I stormed into the dark cave. The entrance was wide, as it had to be, for the klynnas to fit through it. The edges of it were jagged, which made me think they might have broken through actual stone.
I wondered if maybe the fae had sealed the creatures in with more than just ice and rock—maybe they’d used their magic to grow the prison’s walls, too. They would’ve probably had to, to keep those massive beasts trapped.
My eyes moved over the scraped and scorched walls as I moved deeper into the cave. Honestly, it was more like a hole in a mountain. I’d thought the entrance was wide, but the more I walked, the larger the space got, until it felt like I was in another world altogether.
Teris caught up to me at some point, walking at my side. His eyes were alert, his body tense and ready for a fight.
I hadn’t heard a single sound other than our footsteps and the soft crackling of my fire, so I wasn’t nervous.
But I was ready to get the hell out of there.
We walked for another twenty minutes before I finally caught a glimpse of the tree we were looking for. It was massive, and glowed slightly gold, loaded with fruit as it seemed to climb through the bottom of the cave and up further into the mountain. Small animals moved over the branches—my excuse to Teris for being there in the first place.
Both of us were silent until we approached the tree.
“I’ll start pulling the beovas from the left. You take the right,” the sabertooth growled to me.
I assumed the beovas were the small animals, and nodded even though I had no intention of following through with his plan.
He went left, and I walked right, just enough that he wouldn’t be able to see me from his side of the tree.
“Here goes nothing,” I whispered to the tree, as I stepped close to it and spread my fingers over the smooth, white bark. It was warm against my palms, and that warmth spread through my arms and into my chest. My eyes closed, and I reached my magic toward the tree the way Vevol had told me that I would need to.
The magic within the tree swelled and heated as the goddess’s consciousness met mine.
She had no physical form anymore, but I could still feel her. Mainly, I felt her approval, and her acceptance of the fate she was going to face.
Over the past few weeks, she had been weaving her magic more deeply into the land, giving it every last ounce of her power.
Her final acts of rebellion—and protection—were through both Fovea, and me.
And while I dreaded what was coming, because I’d had to connect with the goddess when I changed my name, I was the only option. No one else had the thick tether to her that she needed to accomplish this last thing.
But I would handle it fine.
It would be great.
Maybe if I kept telling myself that, I’d believe it eventually, too.
“Thank you,”she murmured into my mind.
She sounded tired—and my throat swelled at the memories of the last time someone had said those words to me, in that same voice.
My mother, on her death bed, after so many years of pain.
