Miri Greymantle's Arc

Chapter 7 of 8

The ring felt warm against Miri's finger for three days before it started to crack. She noticed the first line during breakfast—a hairline split running through one of the carved patterns. By evening, two more had appeared. The cub nuzzled her hand and she pulled it away quickly, afraid her touch might make it worse. Rothe's light dimmed when he saw it. He hovered closer, his glow flickering against the fractured metal. Miri turned the ring slowly, watching the cracks spread like veins through the ghostly surface. "Your mother said I was supposed to help trapped souls," she said. "Why would she give me something that breaks?" His presence shifted, grew heavier. Then his voice came, quiet and careful. "It's not breaking because you failed. It's breaking because I haven't accepted what I left behind." The words settled between them like stones. "She wants me to return to the throne. To rule beside her again." He paused. "The ring will shatter completely unless I do." Miri stood and walked to the edge of the monument platform. The forest stretched out in every direction, alive and solid and real. She thought about her father's careful research, his years of work to bring her back. He'd been terrified of losing her again. Rothe's mother was terrified of the same thing—not of losing her son, but of losing the judge he'd been. The throne needed him. The trapped souls needed someone to guide them forward. But Miri needed him here, and that was the problem neither of them wanted to say out loud. She took the ring off and held it up to the light. Four cracks now, spreading from the center like a broken star. "There's a pedestal," Rothe said. "Between the worlds. Where she's waiting." His glow pulsed once, uncertain. "If I go, I don't know if I can come back the same way." Miri closed her hand around the ring and felt the fractures press against her palm. She'd spent so long trying to prove she was strong enough to stand without her father's protection. Now Rothe was asking her to let him go so he could protect others instead. She opened her hand and looked at the ring again. The cracks had stopped spreading. "Take me to the pedestal," she said. "I want to meet her myself." His light flared bright, surprised. She slipped the ring back on. "If this breaks, it breaks. But I'm not letting you choose between your past and me without understanding what you're actually choosing."