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It stood high in the air, held aloft by four towering marble pillars branded with markings that gleamed brightly. A narrow bridge of carved stone, worn with age but still sturdy-looking, connected it to the main palace—to one of the few sections of that main palace that also seemed to still be sturdy.

I heard Nova following me up the stairs. She gasped as she reached the top, catching sight of the suspended room. She rushed closer, tripping over pieces of debris in her haste, her gaze never leaving the strange, circular structure.

Captain Voss and our soldiers caught up as well. While Nova continued to explore the room and the pillars holding it up, we searched the surrounding areas for any potential threats.

Once I was satisfied no one was hiding in the rubble to ambush us, I joined Nova in the shadow of the room. I paced between the columns, brushing my fingers over the strange symbols etched in gold, trying—unsuccessfully—to decipher their meaning.

“This could be it,” Nova said, her eyes locked on the bottom of the chamber. “Look at that.” She pointed to an engraved circle with lines radiating from its center and a crescent shape curving away from it on either side. “It’s similar to the mark of the Vaelora that I saw on Lorien’s arm. And that one next to it…”

I studied it along with her. It featured a crescent shape, as well, but one turned horizontally, its open ends curling inward as if trying to close the gap. Suspended within that gap was a black teardrop. “The mark of the Shadow Vaelora, maybe?”

Nova was quiet for a long moment before seeming to make up her mind. Looking to the bridge, she said, “I want to go inside.”

A warning skipped through me at the words, but I made myself nod; we’d come too far to turn back now.

It took a bit of exploring, climbing over crumbling walls and leaping across precarious patches of flooring, but we eventually found a way into the palace, and then up to the room that allowed us to access the bridge.

Our footsteps echoed and stirred up dust, regardless of how carefully we stepped. The space on this side of the bridge was vast, its ceiling dizzyingly high. It looked like it had been agrand entrance atrium at one point—to a throne room, perhaps; through a crack in a pair of doors hanging crooked on their hinges, I saw a room with an ornate chair in its center, its back high and trimmed in threads that shimmered faintly in the dim light.

I turned away from it, focusing on the bridge. But as I braced my hand against a leaning column, fighting off a cough triggered by dust, an odd image flickered into my mind: Those crooked doors behind me swinging open to reveal the throne in all its splendor—no,thrones.

There were two.

Two empty thrones draped in flowers, centered in a room filled with people silently bowing their heads.

My curiosity almost won, urging me to turn around and look closer, to see what visions I might be able to draw out of the other pieces of this broken palace.

Nova’s voice stopped me at the last instant: “Are you coming?”

Captain Voss joined us at that moment as well, and he nodded toward the bridge, which Nova had already stepped onto. “We should stay together.”

I agreed, though the urge to glance back followed me onto the bridge, along with the growing sense that we were missing something. It was only the three of us—with the rest of our search group scattered close by in the ruins below, keeping a lookout—but suddenly I felt as if the entire realm were pressing in around us, intently watching our next moves.

Before I could speak any of these fears aloud, I lifted my eyes to the room ahead.

And I immediately forgot about everything else.

Because the way into that circular, suspended room was clear, with both Grimnor and Luminor balanced on either side of its open door.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Nova

“This feels like a trap,”said Aleks.

“It does,” I agreed. And yet, I couldn’t stop myself from stepping forward, even knowing Lorien had been here, that he’d left these swords for us to find—who else could have done it?

Grimnor hummed as I approached, sending a pleasant tingling through me. My chest flooded with warmth, as if I’d spotted an old friend from across the room; all I wanted to do was run and grab ahold of her, to never let her go again.

But I forced myself to move slowly.

Aleks did the same, cautiously reaching a hand toward Luminor, but not quite touching the blade or the ornate holder it rested within. “It feels like both swords are channeling their power into this structure,” he said, his gaze sweeping over the walls of the suspended room.

“I wonder what will happen when we pull them out of the holders?”

“No telling. But we should probably brace ourselves for the worst; nothing about this realm feels stable.”

I considered the two swords and the open door between them. As much as I longed to feel the weight of Grimnor in my hands once more, I didn’t want to risk disturbing whatever magic was currently keeping our path unobstructed and everything around us relatively sturdy.