Alastair Von Vexx's Arc

Chapter 9 of 13

By morning they stood again before the sealed crystal. Wisteria held her cracked ring against her chest. Alastair studied the runes one more time. He had hoped for another key. There was none. The script answered only to the metal already fused to her hand. "It wants me," Wisteria said. Her voice was even. "Or what it can take from me." Alastair shook his head. He offered his own blood, his own name. The runes stayed cold under his palm. They brightened only when her fingers neared them. She stepped forward before he could stop her. She pressed the cracked ring flat against the central rune. Light raced up her arm. She did not cry out. The door drank. Alastair caught her as her knees buckled, and he felt the hollow open inside her through their bond — a clean cut, a missing room. Something was gone. He did not know yet what. The ring shattered. Bright shards rained from her hand and struck the stone floor in a glittering heap, every color the cavern held. Her fingers were bare for the first time in months. The skin beneath was smooth, unmarked, as if the ring had never been there at all. The crystal door swung wide on silent hinges. Beyond it, a long dim hall opened, and at its end sat a stone box wet with pale blue water that hissed where it touched the floor. Wisteria steadied herself against him. "I gave it something," she said. "I cannot tell you what. I only know it is missing." Alastair looked from her empty hand to the holy-water-soaked coffin waiting in the dark. The door was open. The price was paid. And whatever his enemies had buried for his bloodline lay one short walk away.