“Now, we cross.” Her wings burst from her back in a flurry of darkness. “I’m no dragon, but I’ll do my best not to drop you.”
He bit back a smile at her teasing tone. “I trust you, Viv.”
The words came naturally to his tongue, and he knew they were true. He trusted her more than he’d ever trusted anyone, even Luna. That realization should have scared him, but it didn’t. Not one bit.
“Good.” She opened her arms. “Come on then, let’s go.”
He stepped into her embrace without a second thought, and she hugged him. He was taller than her, and her head came to his shoulder, but there was a rightness about this that echoed through his entire body.
“Hold on tight,” she warned.
He gripped her middle and promised, “I won’t ever let you go.”
Not now, not ever. Not if he had anything to say about it. Vivienne balanced him in a way he’d never even known was possible.
Did she know that?
She must have heard the unspoken meaning in his words because she sucked in a breath.
A long moment passed before she whispered, “Good. Don’t.”
With a flap of her wings, she launched into the darkness.
Marius’s feet dangled, and his pack was heavy on his back as the vampire carried him over the chasm, but his weight didn’t seem to bother her. Her wings flapped steadily, and the glowing mushroom in his hand was as good as any torch, lighting their way across the darkness.
He had no idea how large the chasm was, only that several minutes seemed to pass before his toes made contact with solid ground.
Thank all the gods.
Marius exhaled, and once Vivienne released him, he kneeled and used the makeshift torch to explore the area. Sure enough, he found broken shards of wood sticking out of the shale. Ropes were attached to the posts, dangling into the dark chasm below.
“There was a bridge here, once.” He yanked on a rope, drawing it up. The edge was smooth, not jagged and frayed. Almost as if…
“Someone cut it,” Vivienne said softly.
Why would anyone do that?
Dread pooled in Marius’s stomach, and his magic’s warning became more insistent. The eerie silence was even louder than before, made worse by the broken bridge. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he shuddered.
This was a dangerous place, and they needed to hurry.
The Worst Climb Ever
Exercise, especially hiking and climbing, was laborious, strenuous on the muscles, and generally exhausting on a good day.
This wasn’t a good day, and Vivienne had never hated hiking more than she did right now. They’d been in Death Mountain for hours, and each step was worse than the last.
This was, without a doubt, the worst climb she’d ever had the displeasure of participating in. That said something because one time, she’d climbed Midnight Peak on the eastern edge of Eleyta during a blizzard with several other vampires in a training exercise.
That had been bad. This was a hundred times worse.
You signed up for this.
The words had been running through her mind on a loop for hours, ever since they crossed the chasm. The knowledge that she’d agreed to this did nothing to ease the burn of her muscles as she climbed the path in front of her.
Although, calling it a path was an extremely generous use of the term.
It was more of a memory of an ancient trail than anything else. Sharp rocks and other pieces of debris covered the rough terrain.