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In silence, we all began to trudge up the side of the mountain. At first I clutched the sharp obsidian crown in my hand, but as the terrain grew more challenging I gave up and tied it to my belt. Icouldn’t help but recall that tying the crown to my belt had done nothing to keep it from stabbing me in the back once before.

We climbed higher and the thick air grew even more suffocating and noxious. I choked on the sulfuric scent and the ash that swirled on the wind.

Still, I kept going.

The back of my mind kept whispering to me that I was mortal. That this couldn’t be done. That I’d suffocate or burn to a crisp before we ever made it to the top.

Still, I kept going.

Flashes of my dreams—my visions, perhaps—mingled with what was real. With what the wind whispered to me.

“What did you say?” I asked, whipping around.

“Nothing, rebel.” Scion looked at me with more concern that I was used to from him. Perhaps I looked mad. Deranged. I felt like I could come unhinged at any moment.

“I don’t like it here,” I said, though some veil of lucidity.

Scion laughed hollowly. “I don’t think anyone does.”

“Someone must. For years, the priests in Nightshade prayed at this spot.”

“True,” Ambrose agreed. “But notice how few stories there are of visiting the Source and being granted a favor. Aisling—and now your mother—are the only one’s I’ve ever heard of.”

I nodded, but said nothing. I was not able to find any words for how I felt to hear that.

How had mother done this? How was I doing it now? Was it really some godly intervention? Or simply that voice that pounded in the back of my mind at all times.I will not die here. I will not die…

The ground got steeper, the rocks sharper and more jagged as we climbed. Even my mates were struggling to find footholds that would not send them careening to the ground.

And then finally, as I was sure my lungs would burst and my skin would melt from my bones, the ground began to even out.

I stared out ahead of me in awe at the enormous fissure in the mountain and swayed before it, hypnotized by the swirling, churning lava hundreds of feet below.

“Wait!” Scion said, gabbing my arm and pulling me back. “You’re too close to the edge.”

I realized he was right and that I’d been teetering far too close to falling.

I looked at Scion and Ambrose. There was only the three of us to decide what to do next, as Bael couldn’t talk in his lion form.

“Well?” I asked.

Ambrose looked some combination of angry and confused. I didn’t have to guess what he was thinking. He’d been working for this for so long, and now he was blind. He didn’t know what to do anymore than we did.

I tried to remember everything I’d ever heard about Aisling. Everything my mother had said about the Source.

And again, the whispers began in the back of my mind. I could not tell if they were real or visions, but I heard the voices as clear as if they were standing beside me.

“The queen poured her power into you, and the force of it caused the Source to erupt.”My mother said.

Bael’s voice from so long ago seemed to laugh.“Aisling begged the gods to help her, and the Source erupted.”

“As long as the crown is not returned to the worthy wearer, the obsidian kingdom will know everlasting misery.”

I felt Scion’s hand on my shoulder, once again pulling me back. “What are you thinking, rebel?”

But I couldn’t speak to him. Couldn’t scream over the voices in my head which were growing louder and more insistent with every passing second. I could no longer recognize who was speaking, only hear the echos of their words.

“…she told me to bring her heir back to her.”