Page 104 of Promise of Darkness
“I’m trying to remember why this is a bad idea.”
“Oh, it’s not. It’s a very, very good idea,” he croons. “But we’re supposed to arrive in Stormhaven within the hour, and an hour’s not long enough to do any of what I have planned.”
I close my eyes. Images dance there, of the pair of us tangled together on heated sheets. “That isn’t helping.”
Thiago chuckles under his breath. “It wasn’t supposed to. Come. Kyrian will be waiting for us.”
I can’t help watching him as he strides toward the center of the Hallow. Thiago wears power like a mantle, but there’s a hint of old wounds showing beneath his careful words.
I wondered why he surrounded himself with the misfits and outcasts like Eris and Baylor. In my mother’s court, they would have been shunned and despised, regardless of their powers.
Now I know.
Because he’s an outcast himself. Even here, in the city he rules, they know him as the enemy.
* * *
Thiago activates the Hallow.
It’s unusual to have one here, inside a building. They’re usually found in mossy forests or atop old barrows. The stones that guard them like silent sentinels are still here, though the columns line the circular room.
“Ready?” Thiago asks, reaching out to take my hand.
For the Prince of Tides? Never. But I nod anyway.
Thiago gave me two weeks to help find thisleanabh an dàn. I’m not going to let one of my mother’s worst enemies bar me from helping.
Thirteen Hallows were created to lock the Old Ones away, but once their other use as portals was discovered, more were created. Not merely prisons, but means of transport between kingdoms.
This is not an origin Hallow.
It’s clear this was built after the wars.
The world flashes past in a shimmer of green as the glyphs light up, and then my stomach starts to turn.
There’s an odd hum within the portal. “Is that supposed to be doing that?”
Thiago frowns.
Power washes over us. Not so much like a soothing tide, as usual, but a raging sea. It sends me spinning, tumbling through a vortex of magic unlike anything I’ve ever known.
Waves of pure magic crash over me, drenching me in its warm liquid gush.
We’re thrown forward, tossed about like jetsam caught in the barrel roll of a wave. I lose Thiago’s hand, tumbling endlessly, endlessly—
This isn’t normal.
It’s never felt like this before.
A hand plucks at my hair, and then a woman appears before me, crafted almost singularly of seafoam. Green seaweed forms her hair, and her brows are dark and frowning over fierce eyes. “You are not welcome here,miatha lin.”
She bares sharp teeth at me, lunging toward my throat.
I scream as her teeth sink into my tender flesh and punch her directly in the side of the face. It’s enough to tear her loose long enough to break free. And then I’m spinning again, churned about like clothes in a copper wash pot. Salt water washes up my nose and down my throat, until it’s all I can taste.
The portal spits me out on a rocky shore, coughing and gagging on seawater.
I’m still fighting, trying to wrestle my way free, only to discover the firm hands locked on my shoulders belong to Thiago.
