“Come. Quickly,” he mutters, tugging me toward the portal. “Before they heal.”
Clasping his bleeding palm with mine, he jerks me to a stop directly in front of the archway. At this distance, the thorns look sharp as daggers. The vines are more than simply twined; they are fused together. Inseparable, even with the sharpest instrument.
Our interlocked fingers drip red as Penn lifts them into the middle of the portal. It shimmers—once, twice—then begins to glow, a steady flood of light so bright, it is blinding. The whisper of maegic that tinges the atmosphere here at the heart of the forestcrescendoes to a thrum that vibrates the air itself. My Remnant tingles, as if absorbing some of the residual power that flows all around us.
I glance to Penn for guidance.
“Whatever you do…” he grins at me, a rare flash of straight white teeth that steals my breath, “don’t let go.”
Without another word, he leads me forward into the light.
Traveling by portalis like being slingshot directly into the sun. It is dizzying. Disorienting. A rushing spectrum of color, a ceaseless buzz of white noise. The world contracts down to nothing, then expands into infinity. It tips sideways, turns upside down. Spins like a wobbling top across a wood plank.
There is no substance—not to the world around me, not to the man beside me. Not tome. My bones dissolve into particles, scattered like dust as we hurl through a beam of pure light. I do not see, so much as sense. Do not touch, so much as feel.
I am sunlight.
I am time.
I am air.
No, not air, but…
Aether.
We hurtle across the network of leylines, gossamer and glowing like a spider’s web in sunlight, intersecting and branching across the whole continent. It is too much to hold in my head at once, too vast to process without fracturing into pieces. I want to shut my eyes, but they are not there to shut. I wonder how it is I can still be holding Penn’s hand when I have no hand left. I wonder how I can wonder anything at all with no mind, no skull, no self.
The journey lasts an eternity and also, somehow, less than a second. A lifetime wrapped within a single blink. With a jarring thud that makes my soul spasm, we slam to a halt. I feel my scattered particles reassemble, dust becoming blood and bone, all that was diaphanous returning to solid form.
And then we are back. Back on solid ground, back in the world. Feet in my boots, breath in my lungs. Penn’s hand squeezes mine, warm and steady. Gulping in ragged gasps of air, I fight off waves of nausea churning at my middle and blink to clear the starbursts from my eyes.
We stand in a round cavern much like the one concealed behind the waterfall, only larger—and significantly drier without a constant blanket of mist to dampen the air. The stone walls around us bear glyphs in the same ancient, etched style, but these do not encircle the entire room. Instead, they form a doorway.
A portal.
It is roughly the same size and shape as the vine arch we passed through in the woods. As I watch, the glyphs fade from a bright red glow to their natural shade of dark ash as the portal goes dormant. In mere seconds, it looks like nothing more than ancient artwork carved into the stone.
“Where are we?” I ask, voice hushed.
“See for yourself.”
Penn does not drop my hand as he leads me to the mouth of the chamber. Stepping out onto a narrow ledge, I find myself staring down at Caeldera. We are at the very top of the crater, with a view of the entire capital sprawled out beneath us. Directly opposite our vantage point, the palace glitters amid the roaring falls. Its turrets refract the first beams of morning light, painting the typically gray facade in the pastel palette of sunrise.
I gasp at the sight, awed by the beauty unfurled like a carpet at my feet.
“This is my favorite place in all of Caeldera.”
Tearing my eyes from the view, I glance at Penn. “It’s not difficult to see why.”
“I come here to clear my head.” His lips tug up at one side. “Or to escape Vanora.”
“Has she always been as she is now? So…calculating?”
“Vanora was born with no fire maegic. She burns with resentment instead. Her need for adoration is a flame that will never go out.” Finally releasing my hand, he reaches up and removes his helm. It hits the stone parapet at our waists with a heavy thunk. I try not to watch too closely as he runs his hands through his hair, mussing the flattened strands. The sight is somehow more riveting than the view of the city.
“She resents me most of all,” Penn continues, bracing himself against the stone. “We share no blood, no true familial bond. She is the daughter of King Vorath—the first Fire Remnant, who was born into the chaos of the Cull and claimed the throne when he came of age. And I was the son of a common blacksmith.”
“Was?Are you not still?”