“I still don’t understand how a Power Spring can be inside a tree?”
“It’s a Power Spring for a reason, Kitten,” Roarke says. He leads the way, and we all follow.
“Because magic does whatever the chuck it wants to?” I mutter.
Killian moves in close behind me, very close, so his grunt is easily decipherable. ‘Hope.’
These giant trees don’t exist anywhere else in the world – only at Power Springs. I hear more chatter than these guys admit. The path. The tree. The unusual stone. They’re all logic – the rest is just hope.
Because we need it to be there.
Stones crunch under my bare feet, and within a few steps, I’m unable to see anything because four guys all taller than me have blocked me in. One on each side. All within arms’ reach.
The barest brush of their power slipping over me hints that this potion is wearing off. Seth’s calm confidence on my right. Killian’s pure protection at my back. Roarke’s bone-deep-wisdom on my left and Pax’s strength in front.
Just a tiny bit. A tease.
When Pax stops, I have to nudge forward and push past him to see what’s blocking our path.
They’ve been calling it stone, like a rough jagged cliff in beige and browns with hand holds. I pictured bits jutting out and scars from the land shifting and cracking. That’s what a cliff is.
They chose the wrong word to describe it.
This is sleek. It’s almost black, dark like it has endless depths, and if the water wasn’t cascading over it, I’m sure it would reflect the world. My world.
Seeing it makes my chest feel funny. Maybe it’s my soul, and it’s somehow lighter. Somehow happier. I can’t explain it – but I recognize it.
I recognize this.
“It’s not rock,” I whisper, moving closer to skim my fingers along the surface and through the ribbon of water. “It’s glass.”
“It looks shiny, but it can’t be glass. The water has polished it smooth, that’s all,” Roarke says.
“Why can’t it be glass?” Seth asks, and I’d thank him for supporting me, but I’m too busy being drawn into the song of something decidedly magical, and definitely Silvari glass.
“Because glass is made,” Roarke says. “It’s a product of chemicals and heat. Glass has no natural place in the world.”
“Silvari glass does,” I correct him, my voice an awe-filled whisper. “And this is Silvari glass.”
I press my palm flat to the surface. Instantly, the water stops flowing and moves like two curtains being pulled back.
There’s a collective breath among the guys. Every hand lifts to press to the glistening black surface easily three times my height or more, leaving silence around us. Feeling for themselves, I guess. Seeing that I’m right.
It reflects, but not the world, only us. Roarke, Pax, me, Killian, then Seth.
All of us in the wrong order, and each looking from one reflection to the next.
A flash of gold erupts to the top left, and suddenly, someone yanks me back. Killian partly steps behind me, and Pax wholly steps in front of me. Turning us into a Shade sandwich and staying that way even though nothing deadly unfolds. I have to shove hard to get Pax to move over so I can see.
A light on the other side of the stone is drawing across its surface – writing.
“Somebody better read that out loud,” I demand.
Roarke clears his throat. “The last breath of the one who does not belong. A shard from the barrier that protects us all. Return the soul to the place of its origin. The black depths. Five beats. And the water to wash the walls away.”
As soon as the last letter scrawls, the surface shatters. A million pieces all echo off each other. Then, before we can react, the glass sucks inwards, shards pulling inside, reforming and smoothing into a tunnel clean through what, a heartbeat ago, was a solid wall.
Wall gone. Door open.
“Aeons,” Roarke gasps.
“Fuck,” Killian counters.
I just swallow hard against pure awe and take my one step forward to stand in the threshold.
The thing is tall enough for even Killian and Seth to pass and wide enough for us to move as a group. The temperature is lower, the air smells fresher, and I feel more alive, more at home, more where I belong than I ever have before.
“It is glass. That’s why the other Seeds couldn’t make it budge. Silvari glass is impervious to almost anything. Apparently, it was never made – it was found. Eydis’ ancestors must have worked out the recipe to replicate it – but this is pure.”
The stuff is so thick that it looks black. Giant tree roots have grown through it, arching around us.
“Apparently, Roarke should stop assuming shit,” Seth mutters.
“They were educated conclusions, and it wouldn’t have mattered if she came here earlier. The magic apparently needed all of us in the same place, and until now, one of us has always been busy. We were the key, all five of us.”
There’s no other side in sight, and the floor gives way to a steep staircase that twists and spirals in a snake-like pattern, but there must be light somewhere down there because it bounces and ricochets enough to keep us from tripping.
The air cools further with each step we take, each breath refreshing and tinged with the scent of something sweet and smooth, sliding down my throat and over my skin. Not quite honey, though that’s the best word for it.
“Can you smell that?” I ask Killian.
“What?” Killian counters.
“I can smell honey.”
“It’s the glass.”
“The glass smells like honey?” I press, just to be sure.
“It smells like you,” they chorus.
“Me? I smell like honey?”
But the idea is lost as we step into a cave. Granite like the boulders outside forms the majority of the walls, making the space much darker, but still lit up by light through a doorway. Tree roots thread through the black stone, cracked and rough, with chunks fallen on the floor. A trickle of water about
