Page 78 of A Cage of Magic and Darkness

He takes my hand, presses his forehead against the backs of my fingers, and closes his eyes.

“Giving you up goes against everything I want. I’d rather be locked away again than living my life knowingyou belong to another man. But if you believe it’s the right thing to do, then I’ll support you. I’ll give you up, Taelyn, even though I love you with every fiber of my being, and I’ll never be happy again. I won’t fight anymore.”

A single tear slides down his pale cheek. He lifts his gaze back to me, his dark eyes glistening with pain.

I fall to the floor, facing him, my heart breaking.

A rumble comes from somewhere outside. We both straighten and turn our heads toward the sound. A split second later, it gets louder, rolling toward us in a wave. The floor beneath us vibrates and then becomes a shudder. Books and candles fall from shelves. Mortar rains from the ceiling. The candelabra swings wildly.

Oh, God, no. It’s happening again. The rot is going to take us. I prepare for the castle to collapse around our ears. Ruarok pulls me into his arms, shielding me with his body. We huddle together, clinging to one another. Is this the end? All that heartache and pain for nothing. I grieve for us, and for the future that had never been our destiny.

It's like living that terrible night I lost my mother all over again. The noise is deafening; dust falls around us. The ground shifts and shakes.

And, just as I believe we’re all about to die, everything goes silent again.

We stay as we are for a moment, still clinging to one another, waiting for it to start again. When nothing else happens, Ruarok releases me, and slowly we unfurl, like ferns emerging from a winter slumber.

Cautiously, I look around. There doesn’t appear to be any structural damage to the room, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t damage elsewhere. I remember seeing themissing tower that day, how it had felt like someone punched my heart straight out the other side of my chest. I brace myself for what might have happened this time, for the loss we’re bound to have suffered.

“Are you all right?” Ruarok asks as he helps me to my feet.

I cough from the dust and nod. “I think so.”

I’m still trembling, but my heartrate is starting to slow. I feel weak and shaky, and I don’t want to look, but I know I have to. He keeps hold of my hand and we walk to the window together, to look out at the rest of the castle and the sprawling city below.

Ruarok draws to a halt, and I stop beside him.

“Taelyn, look.”

My jaw drops. “I-I?—”

For once in my life, I’m lost for words. Where the giant hole had once been where the King’s Tower had stood, there is now ground. It’s not perfect, by any means—it’s dirt and rubble—but it’s solid.

“How is that possible?” he says.

“I have no idea.”

I release his hand and turn to run.

“Where are you going?” he calls after me.

“To take a closer look.”

Until I see for myself what I think might have happened, I’m not going to believe it. Ruarok, with his much longer legs, quickly catches up to me, and we hurry through the castle, down to the ground, and outside to where the King’s Tower once stood.

We come to a halt in the same spot where I’d stood only days before, peering down into the darkness, my toeson the edge of that deadly fall. Only now it isn’t a hole I’m on the edge of, but what appears to be solid ground.

I lift my foot, but Ruarok’s hand on my arm stops me.

“No, let me go first.”

He takes a tentative step out on the ground, the same place that had been a gaping void into nothingness only an hour earlier. My heart feels as though it’s in my throat, and I reach for him, planning to grab him should the ground start to sink.

“It’s solid,” he says and takes a couple of experimental jumps to prove his point.

I gasp and place my hand to my chest. “By the gods, Ruarok, don’t do that.”

“It’s fine, Taelyn. It’s no different than where you’re currently standing.”

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