Page 210 of Lana Pecherczyk

“Sorry,” she blurted, despite knowing she couldn’t control her weak legs or feverish head. Every step dislodged another trinket or gem, yet Cloud wanted none of it. He shoved her towards a dark, gaping hole in the side of the mountain of treasure.

Just before they reached it, just before he thrust her into that suffocating blackness, he paused. Only for a second. His profile stood out against the deeper gloom of the passage, dawnlight tracing his unruly hair like a halo.

“This is why he’s so afraid,” she whispered, stupidly reaching for a lock of his hair blowing in the wind. “Why he’s afraid to love me.”

Grim, assessing eyes met hers, but he didn’t pull away. It turned out, she couldn’t raise her hand higher than her hip. “You don’t have long,” he noted.

“So just kill me now. Put me out of my misery.”

“River has that effect on the ladies.” A sharp laugh. A shake of the head. A deep, gathering sigh. “Remember when I said the pain would pass?”

Blake tensed. Held her breath.

“Yeah…” He stared into the gloomy doorway. “This is going to hurt again.”

Before she could scream, before she could even draw a breath to protest, he shoved her forward.

Into the dark.

Chapter

Sixty-Five

CIRCA 200 YEARS AGO

Manfri pushed through dense, thorny undergrowth. Branches whipped at his face, but he didn’t slow. Cielo and Nikan were right behind him. Dirt and mulch stuck to their boots. The air was heavy with the scent of decay and a sickly-sweet smell that clung to the back of his throat.

Faster.

Had to be faster if they wanted to arrive before dawn, before they were caught and made to do this differently.

He glanced back.

Nikan was a hesitant silhouette, occasionally pausing as if listening to things Manfri couldn’t—or wouldn’t—hear. Cielo’s outline was a tense shadow behind him.

“Any idea where you’re actually leading us, Manfri?” Cielo hissed. “Or is this another one of your ‘go with the flow’ plans?”

“Worried you’ll break a nail, pretty boy?” he didn’t have time for doubts, not now.

He pointed at a faint, unnatural glow filtering through the trees ahead. There.

They continued onward until the sickly sweet smell intensified. The oppressive predawn sounds of the forest gaveway to a faint, almost inaudible hum, a thrumming sensation in the air as if the world held its breath. The glow ahead wasn’t warm like a campfire in his home roost. It was a cold, pulsating bioluminescence. On the trees. In the underbrush. In the glimmering water beyond the forest’s edge.

Behind, Manfri heard one set of footsteps halt. He turned and found Nikan stopped. His dark hair lifted slightly, stirred by an unfelt breeze. “The air here,” he murmured, “it’s … listening.”

“Everything in this damn forest is trying to kill us, Nik. Keep moving.” Manfri pushed on, the glow drawing him. He wouldn’t admit he felt the same unease they did. One sign of doubt and they’d all chicken out like a bunch of mouse-munchers.

Together, they burst from the treeline and onto the precipice of something vast and terrifyingly beautiful—the shore of the Ceremonial Lake.

“Fucking enormous,” he whispered.

It had no right to exist here, no mountains feeding it, no sea nearby. But it was always plentiful.

The sheer power radiating from it felt tangible, like a living thing. This wasn’t water, but a wound in the world, freely bleeding magic for its inhabitants.

The sacred, vibrant turquoise, blue, and purple water was impossibly vivid. It seemed to breathe. Steam coiled from its surface in ghostly tendrils and rose into a sky whorling with green, magenta, and indigo hues. Endless depths reflected the colorful sky. Or maybe it was the other way around. Hard to tell which came first.

“I thought we’d be too late to see it,” Manfri murmured, nodding to the sky. During the equinox each year, the lights shone brightest. “The Donna says it’s our ancestors protecting us.”