Immortal Reign(88)

They ran down a long corridor with a heavy metal door at the end of it. Lucia pressed her hand flat against it.

Nothing happened.

“Come on!” she yelled at it as she tried again, this time pressing both hands against cold metal.

It finally slid open.

“We can use the monolith to escape this?” Jonas asked.

“To be honest, I don’t know for sure if it will work. So if you believe in any god or goddess that’s ever existed, it’s time to start praying.”

He almost laughed at that. “How about I just believe in you?”

Lucia’s gaze locked with his for a moment before she pulled him into the next room with her. Inside was a glowing violet monolith—a smaller version of the one in the mountains.

“He knew,” Lucia said, and Jonas could barely hear her over the sound of the Sanctuary’s destruction. “Timotheus made sure we had a way out before he died.”

The ground shook, and with every step they took, pieces of it began to fall away.

“Close your eyes,” Lucia yelled, grabbing Jonas’s hand in hers as she reached for the crystal’s surface.

Upon contact, it became blindingly bright. The noise that came from it was deafening, like rolling thunder.

Jonas felt Lucia squeeze his hand harder.

This world was ending, and it was taking them with it . . .

But then the monolith was gone. The room was gone.

And they were standing in the middle of another field, next to an ancient, crumbling stone wheel jutting out of the ground.

Jonas turned around in a circle, barely believing what he’d just experienced. “We made it. We made it! You, Lucia Damora, are absolutely brilliant!”

“It worked,” she said wearily. “I can’t believe it actually—”

Jonas grabbed her face between his hands and pressed his mouth against hers, kissing her hard and deep. When he finally broke away, he staggered back from her, stunned.

She’s going to kill me for that, he thought.

Lucia looked at him, her eyes wide and her fingers pressed to her lips. “Why would you say that?”

“Say what?” he managed.

“That I’m going to kill you.”

He stared at her, confused. “I didn’t say it. I . . . I thought it.”

“You thought it?” She studied him closely.

“Can you hear this?”

Lucia’s lips hadn’t moved, but he still distinctively heard her voice. Every word.

Jonas’s heart pounded. “I can hear your thoughts. How is that possible?”

“You have Timotheus’s magic inside you. It has to be the reason you were also able to enter my dream.”

“Did he know this would happen?” Jonas thought, both disturbed and intrigued by the possibilities.

Then Lucia spoke aloud. “I can’t deal with this right now. I have to focus on Lyssa and on—”

She cried out and fell to the ground in a heap. Jonas was at her side in an instant, kneeling on the tall green grass.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, stroking her dark hair back from her face.

“It’s Kyan . . .” she said in a pained whisper. “I felt him just now, in my head.”

“What? How?”

“I didn’t know it was possible. I . . . I tried to summon him at the palace after Lyssa was taken, but I failed. Now I think he’s . . . summoning me.”

Jonas swore under his breath, then helped her to her feet. “Whatever he’s doing right now? Ignore him. He has no power over you.”

“He has Lyssa.” Her voice broke.

Jonas scanned the area, spotting the outline of a familiar city in the distance. “I think we’re in Auranos. That . . . that’s Hawk’s Brow over there. That means we’re only a few hours away from the palace.”

Lucia’s face had gone pale, her eyes haunted. “That’s where he is.”

“What?”

“The City of Gold,” she whispered. “He’s in the City of Gold right now. He wants me to come to him. He’s stronger . . . so much stronger than before.” She drew in a shaky breath. “Oh, Jonas . . . I am so sorry.”

He frowned. “Sorry for what?”

She touched his face, placing her palms against his cheeks, and drew him closer. He didn’t resist. For a moment, a heartbeat, he was certain she would kiss him again.

Lucia looked deeply into his eyes. “I need to take it all this time. Timotheus had to know I would need this. That I’d do this. He knew everything.”

“What—?”

Then he began to feel a painful draining sensation, like he’d felt the night of the rainstorm, the night he’d given her his magic to survive Lyssa’s birth. But this was worse—deeper somehow, like she was stealing not just magic but life itself from him, as if she’d stabbed him in his gut and his blood left him, not in a slow drip but in a sudden and massive gush.

Before he could process what this meant, coldness fell upon him like a heavy blanket. He tried to move, tried to pull away, but it was impossible. He fell into a bottomless darkness from which he didn’t know if he’d ever return.

But he did.

Jonas woke slowly, unsure how much time had passed. It was still light, and he lay next to the stone wheel.