At the far end of the bridge ahead, a shape unfolded from the gloom.
It was not a monster.
It was a sentinel.
Black iron and living stone shaped like a dwarf, but twice the height of any man. Its shoulders were broad enough to block the bridge. One violet eye burned in its face, the same color as the amulet at Thorn’s throat and the bracelet at Kit’s wrist.
The sentinel stirred fully, and the sound of it was stone remembering how to stand.
Its single eye fixed on them.
When it spoke, its voice rolled through the hall like a millstone turning.
“The Sword of Truth speaks only what is. Speak your purpose plainly, and the stone will judge.”
Thorn did not raise his weapon.
He had no wish to fight the thing.
Not if talking had even a flea’s chance of working.
He stepped forward just enough to be heard, though Kit stayed close at his side.
“Guardian,” he said, “how may we prove we are worthy? I have the Sword of Truth here, and we only followed a cave and found ourselves in this place. We don’t intend to intrude or trespass.”
The sentinel’s violet eye pulsed once.
Slow.
Deliberate.
“Curiosity without conquest,” it said. “Shelter without claim. The stone hears truth in your words.”
A low rumble answered from somewhere deep beneath the city.
The guardian’s eye dimmed to a steady glow.
“You may pass. But know this: the halls remember what was left behind. Walk gently, or the city will wake fully.”
The massive form stepped aside, clearing the bridge.
Kit exhaled.
“Well,” she said quietly, “that was almost polite.”
Her gaze flicked to Thorn’s amulet, then to the bracelet on her wrist.
“These bought us passage. I wonder what else they’re worth down here.”
The guardian’s eye tracked them as they stepped forward.
“One path leads to the forges,” it said. “Another to the archives. A third to the heart. Choose.”
Thorn looked across the three arches.
They had come only to escape rain. They had found an underground city, a living sentinel, and a choice that felt much larger than shelter.
He looked back at the guardian.
“We started out looking for shelter from the storm above,” he said. “We wanted to make sure we weren’t in danger. That’s all. We should get back to our horses near the watchtower ruins. Guardian, is there a path you can set us on?”
The sentinel’s eye flared once.
“The path upward is sealed until the city is satisfied. Your horses wait above, but the way is not yet open to you.”
It lifted one massive stone arm and gestured again toward the three arches.
“The forges hold the key to ascent. The archives hold the memory of why the city sleeps. The heart holds what woke at your coming. Choose, or remain.”
Thorn’s jaw tightened.
Kit glanced up at him.
“Knowledge first?”
“Knowledge is power.”
Her mouth curved.
“The archives,” Thorn said.
The guardian’s eye dimmed in what might have been approval.
“Wisdom before strength. The archives lie through the left arch. Walk the black stone path. Touch nothing until the stones speak.”
The warning followed them across the bridge.
Touch nothing until the stones speak.
Kit repeated it under her breath as they passed beneath the left arch.
The air changed at once.
The damp mineral breath of the city gave way to something cooler and drier. Old parchment. Stone dust. The dry scent of sleeping knowledge.
The corridor opened into a vast circular chamber.
Shelves rose in spiraling tiers, carved directly from the living rock. Scrolls, tablets, and sealed cases rested in their niches, untouched by centuries. Runes glimmered faintly along the walls, not bright enough to read, but awake enough to watch.
At the center of the chamber stood a single pedestal.
Empty.
Kit’s bracelet flared softly.
The pedestal answered with a matching violet glow.
“Something was meant to sit there,” she said. “Something that belonged to whoever wore this.”
She lifted her wrist.
Thorn looked around the chamber.
“Eyes first. Hands later.”
Kit nodded.
“Smart.”
They circled the room slowly, scanning the shelves and alcoves. Countless scrolls waited in silence. Tablets leaned in careful stacks. Dust clung to everything except the pedestal, which seemed untouched by time.
Then Kit stopped.
“There.”
High on the second tier, in a narrow alcove, a small object caught the violet light.
Dark metal.
Broken from something larger.
Kit’s bracelet pulsed in answer.
“It matches the pedestal’s glow,” she said. “And my bracelet’s reacting to it.”
Thorn studied the chamber.
“If it’s broken, there may be other pieces.”
They continued circling.
Nothing else answered.
No other glow. No other pull. No second fragment hiding among the scrolls and tablets.
Only the one.
Kit drifted toward a shelf, her gaze caught by a scroll whose title still gleamed in ink that looked freshly wet.
The Binding of Names.
Her hand lifted.
Thorn caught the movement.
“Kit. No.”
She froze, fingers hovering inches from the scroll.
His voice softened, but only slightly.
“No touch, remember?”
She drew her hand back, guilt flashing across her face.
“Fascinating title.”
“You’re the scholar. I’m the muscle. Even muscle knows when not to touch.”
Kit huffed a quiet laugh.
“Fair. Even muscle has sense.”
Her eyes lingered on the scroll one moment longer before she stepped back.
“The fragment first, then. Let’s see what it wants.”
Thorn looked at the alcove, then at her bracelet.
“It seems keyed to you. You should be the one to collect it.”
Kit glanced at him.
“You trust me with it?”
“Dangerous habit.”
Her mouth curved.
“Yours, not mine.”
She reached up and closed her fingers around the dark metal fragment.
It lifted free without resistance.
The moment it left the alcove, her bracelet flared bright violet. The fragment answered, both lights threading together as if remembering each other after a long separation.
Kit held it between them.
“Well,” she said. “It likes me.”
At Thorn’s throat, the amulet woke.
Its violet light flashed, turning first one way, then another, searching. Then it grew brighter in one direction, pointing deeper into the archive.
Thorn looked where it pulled.
“I think we’re supposed to go this way.”
They followed the light between the spiraling shelves.
With every step, the amulet brightened. Kit’s bracelet pulsed in answer, the fragment warm in her palm. The archive seemed to shift around them, aisles opening that had not been visible before, shelves parting just enough to let them pass.
At last the path narrowed and opened into a smaller chamber lined with sealed alcoves.
At its center stood another pedestal.
This one was cracked.
A hollow waited at its heart.
Thorn’s amulet flared sharply toward it.
Kit stepped beside him.
“Another lock,” she said. “And something’s waiting inside.”
Thorn lifted the amulet by its chain, holding it toward the pedestal.
The chain pulled taut.
“It wants to be there.”
Kit watched the pull, her bracelet burning brighter.
“It wants,” she agreed. “But the last time we fed pieces into stone, the world folded.”
She looked from the amulet to Thorn’s face.
“If you set it there, we may not come back the same way we came.”
Thorn studied the pedestal.
“I don’t think the amulet alone completes it. Show me the fragment.”
Kit held it out.
The glow from the fragment stretched toward the amulet like fingers reaching through water.
“They fit,” she said quietly. “Like they were broken from the same whole.”
“Your fragment first,” Thorn said. “If I put the amulet in and it isn’t complete, that feels like a bad idea.”
Kit met his eyes.
“You think you’re right?”
“I think I’m right enough.”
She smiled faintly.
“Terrifying standard.”
Then she stepped to the pedestal and lowered the fragment into the hollow.
It settled with a soft click.
Violet light flared once, then sank into the cracked stone. The pedestal answered with a low hum, and the fracture along its edge began to knit.
Kit looked back.
“Your turn.”
Thorn did not need to place the amulet.
He simply let go.
It snapped into the remaining slot as if pulled by an unseen hand.
The click echoed through the chamber.
The pedestal’s hum deepened. The crack sealed completely. Violet light flooded the stone, then rippled outward across the floor. Runes woke one by one, racing up the walls, across the shelves, and into the dark ceiling above.
Kit went still.
Her eyes widened.
The bracelet flared so bright Thorn had to squint.
“Kit?”
She stared past him, transfixed.
The archive walls dissolved into living runes around her. Not physically, perhaps, but in her sight. Knowledge poured through the bracelet, through the fragment, through the amulet fixed in the pedestal.
Her breath caught.
“Muscle,” she whispered. “I see it. All of it.”
Thorn saw nothing at first.
Only Kit, standing in violet light, wonder breaking open across her face.
Then she reached for him.
He took her hand.
The glow surged across their joined fingers and swept over him.
The chamber vanished.
He saw the city as it had been.
Alive with fire, hammers, voices, and song.
He saw dwarves working under the mountain, carving halls from black stone, forging wards into shields, blades, chains, and gates. He saw the deep beneath them open into something older than language.
Not a monster.
Not exactly.
A silence.
Vast. Patient. Empty.
A force that did not hunger, did not rage, did not scheme. It simply wanted stillness. Absolute stillness. A world without breath, without noise, without wanting. A sleep so complete it would take everything into itself and call that mercy.
The dwarves had not destroyed it.
They had bound it.
And then they had fled.
The archives were the memory of why the city slept.
The amulet and bracelet were keys to what had been sealed.
The heart held the seal.
The forge held the means to strengthen or break it.
The vision faded.
Thorn staggered slightly, still gripping Kit’s hand.
She looked just as shaken.
“The whole truth,” she breathed.
He swallowed.
“The dwarves locked it away. I can’t see why we’d want to break it out.”
“No,” Kit said. “We see first. Decide after.”
The amulet remained locked in the pedestal with the fragment, but the connection between them and the city had changed. The runes along the chamber walls now recognized them. When they stepped back into the corridor, the stones lit before them, guiding them out of the archives and toward the heart.
The city remembered them now.
The path sloped downward.
The air grew warmer and heavier, carrying the scent of old metal and quenched fire. Ahead, a massive arch opened into a chamber pulsing with deep violet light.
At its center rose a seal of black stone and iron.
Runes spiraled across its surface in interlocking bands. The chamber floor was carved with binding marks, all leading inward. Beneath the seal, something vast and ancient stirred.
Bound.
Not broken.
Awake enough to know they were there.
Kit closed her eyes, violet light washing over her face. Her bracelet burned hot against her wrist.
Thorn watched her carefully.
“What is it?” he asked. “Evil? Hungry? A force of nature?”
Kit took a slow breath.
When she spoke, her voice was quieter than the chamber should have allowed, yet every word carried.
“Not evil. Not hungry. Just… done.”
Thorn frowned.
“Done?”
“It was bound when the world was young. It has been dreaming in the dark ever since.” She opened her eyes. “The dwarves didn’t cage a monster. They caged a silence that wanted to be left alone.”
The seal pulsed.
Kit looked at it with something almost like pity.
“It doesn’t want to devour us. It wants us to walk away and let it sleep.”
“Then we strengthen the bonds.”
She nodded.
“Yes. But the archives gave us the why, not the how.”
“The forge?”
“The forge. Something there tells us what binds or breaks this thing.”
They left the heart chamber and returned toward the central city.
The sentinel waited where they had first met it, its massive form unmoved, violet eye tracking their approach.
“You chose wisdom,” it rumbled. “Now you seek the means.”
Kit glanced at Thorn.
“At least it approves.”
“Or it hasn’t decided to crush us yet.”
The sentinel turned its eye toward the right arch.
“The armory lies through the right arch. The stones remember your purpose.”
Thorn hesitated.
“I thought it said forges earlier.”
Kit studied the arch.
“Maybe the city has both. Maybe the path is shifting.”
“The guardian hasn’t steered us false yet.”
“Then armory it is.”
They passed beneath the carved lintel.
The corridor swallowed them in shadow, then gave them back to light.
The armory blazed to life around them.
Violet runes ignited along the walls, casting sharp light across racks of ancient weapons and armor. Shields leaned in neat rows. Blades hung in ordered silence. Helms and breastplates waited as though their owners had stepped away only yesterday.
But it was not only an armory.
Raw materials lay stacked beside cold forges. Ingots. Unfinished blades. Half-shaped armor plates. Chains. Rivets. Tools.
Kit’s bracelet flared.
“This is where they made the bindings,” she murmured. “Not just weapons. The seals themselves were forged here.”
Thorn’s attention had already been caught.
A shield rested on one of the racks.
It was beautiful. Broad, perfectly balanced, its surface catching the violet light like deep water. Runes spiraled across the metal in patterns that matched the seal in the heart chamber.
It looked made for his arm.
He reached toward it.
Kit caught his wrist.
“Muscle. Wait.”
Her voice was low and urgent.
The bracelet flared hot against her skin.
“Everything in here woke when we entered. That shield is answering you, but answering how?”
Thorn stared at the shield.
“It fits.”
“That is not always a compliment down here.”
She studied the runes.
“It’s not just armor. It’s part of the binding. The dwarves forged wards into everything they made.”
He did not move.
“If it fits you perfectly,” she continued, “that’s not coincidence. It’s choosing. But chosen for what?”
Thorn slowly lowered his hand.
“The sentinel said not to touch until the stones speak.”
“Exactly.”
He looked at the shield again, and this time he let his senses reach for it.
The answer came cold and clear.
The shield wanted him.
So did other things in the room.
Not to arm him.
To claim him.
To bind him into the ward itself.
Kit saw the truth settle on his face.
“You’d join them,” she whispered.
“To stone and silence.”
Her fingers found his.
“No. I don’t want to lose you like that. Not when we’ve barely begun.”
He squeezed her hand once.
“No touching.”
“Eyes only.”
Thorn forced his gaze away from the shield.
“It’s not what’s reaching,” he said slowly. “It’s what’s not.”
Kit followed his stare.
Beside the shield was an empty space on the rack.
The runes around it were dark.
Something had once rested there.
A blade, perhaps.
Or part of the binding.
Kit stepped closer, careful not to touch.
“Something’s missing,” she said. “The shield is reaching because its match is gone.”
Thorn’s hand moved to the Sword of Truth at his side.
“The sentinel recognized this.”
He drew the blade.
Plain steel. No ornament. No unnecessary beauty. It did not blaze or boast. But in his hand, it felt honest.
He placed it into the empty space.
For a breath, nothing happened.
Then the runes around the gap flared to life.
The sword settled with a soft, resonant click.
Like it had always belonged there.
Kit’s bracelet burned hot.
“The sword was part of the binding,” she breathed. “The sentinel knew.”
The armory’s light shifted. Runes flowed toward a new arch at the far end of the chamber, pointing the way onward.
Thorn stared at the sword.
He liked that sword.
More than liked it.
It had found its way to him for a reason. It felt like a friend. It had served the innkeeper’s grandfather well. It had served him well.
But now it rested in the rack as though the city had been waiting for its return.
Kit watched him.
“You take it back?”
Thorn shook his head, though the choice cost him.
“It found its way to me for a reason. I have to trust that. If the city wants me to have it afterward, it’ll give it back.”
“Or give you something else.”
“Maybe.”
He stepped away.
“Leave it where it is.”
Kit nodded.
“Trust the city.”
The new arch brightened.
They followed.
The corridor beyond sloped deeper into the city’s bones. The air grew warmer, carrying the scent of quenched metal and old fire. Ahead, the passage opened into a vast forge chamber.
Anvils stood in rows.
Hammers hung from racks.
At the center of the room, a forge pit glowed with deep violet embers that had never quite died.
On the central anvil rested a broken chain link.
Dark metal.
Veined with violet light.
Kit’s bracelet flared sharply.
“The missing piece,” she murmured.
Thorn studied the broken link.
“The binding itself.”
The gap in the metal pulsed faintly.
He pointed.
“Missing piece A goes into chain gap B.”
Kit looked at him.
“Elegant.”
“I have moments.”
She stepped closer to the anvil.
“It belongs there. But we can’t just drop it in. The dwarves didn’t merely fit pieces together. They made them one.”
Thorn looked toward the forge pit.
“We heat it. Meld it. Strike while the metal remembers its shape.”
Kit’s eyes shifted strangely, her focus going distant.
Something was guiding her now.
The city. The stones. The old memory of craft.
Thorn saw it in the way she picked up the tongs as if she had used them all her life, though he knew she had not. Her movements were steady, almost dreamlike.
He lifted the forge hammer.
Kit set the broken link into the violet embers.
The metal hissed as it met the fire.
The veins flared brighter.
“It remembers,” Kit whispered.
They waited until the link glowed the same deep violet as the seal in the heart chamber.
Then Kit lifted it from the embers and placed it on the anvil.
“Strike true, muscle,” she said. “Make it one.”
Thorn brought the hammer down.
The sound rang through the forge chamber like a bell struck beneath the mountain.
Violet sparks sprayed across the stone.
The metal shifted beneath the blow. Not breaking. Not flattening. Changing. Its shape altered subtly, flowing into the exact curve of the gap.
Kit moved quickly.
With the tongs, she set the reformed piece into the broken chain.
It sealed with a soft chime.
Violet veins threaded through the entire length of the binding. The chain brightened, light racing link to link until the whole thing glowed complete and whole.
A low hum rose from the forge.
Then from the floor.
Then from the walls.
The city answered.
Kit stiffened.
The bracelet at her wrist flared white-hot.
She cried out.
Thorn turned sharply.
The metal sank into her skin.
“Kit!”
She held her hand up, staring in horror as violet light burned beneath the surface. The bracelet was no longer resting on her wrist. It was becoming part of her, sinking into flesh and magic and bone.
Thorn stepped toward her, helpless fury tightening his chest.
There was nothing to fight.
Nothing to cut.
Nothing to pull away without hurting her worse.
All he could do was watch.
The light blazed.
Then, slowly, it cooled.
Kit’s breathing steadied.
The pain faded from her face, replaced first by shock, then wonder.
The violet stones had settled beneath her skin in an intricate pattern, no longer a bracelet but a living mark. It pulsed gently when she flexed her fingers.
“It’s inside me,” she whispered.
Thorn searched her face.
“Are you truly all right?”
Kit looked at the mark.
Then at him.
A slow smile touched her mouth.
“This is power I don’t yet understand,” she said. “The city’s gift to me.”
Relief loosened Thorn’s shoulders.
“The city chose well.”
She glanced at him.
The mark glowed faintly beneath her skin.
“Keeper of the key,” she murmured. “Feels heavier than it sounds.”
They left the forge behind.
The violet light faded as they passed back through the armory. The weapons and armor stood silent now, their runes dimmed to embers. The shield still waited. So did the armor. So did the Sword of Truth.
Thorn looked at the sword as they passed.
But he did not touch it.
Not yet.
They retraced their steps through the black stone corridors until the sentinel came into view.
It watched Kit with its single violet eye.
“The binding is whole,” it said. “The seal sleeps. The mark chose its keeper. The city does not err.”
Its eye flared toward a new arch, one they had not seen before.
“This path leads upward. To your horses. To the world above.”
Kit exhaled.
“It approves. Or at least it hasn’t decided to crush me.”
Thorn looked back toward the armory.
The sentinel’s voice ground through the hall again.
“The witch got her gift and her mission. As keeper, she may take from the armory.”
Kit stilled.
The sentinel continued.
“Choose wisely. Remember, whatever you take will bind you to the city. Choose what serves the binding, not what serves the self.”
Thorn glanced toward the armory.
The beautiful shield. The armor. The sword.
He gave the sentinel a sidelong look.
“Can she have both? And the armor?”
Kit raised an eyebrow.
“Pushing your luck, muscle.”
The sentinel’s violet eye flared once.
“The witch carries one mark and may carry one gift. Choose.”
One.
The word settled heavily.
Thorn looked at the shield again when they returned to the armory.
Beautiful. Strong. Calling.
The armor gleamed as well, shaped with impossible craft.
But the sword waited in its place on the rack, plain and quiet. Its light hidden. No vanity. No seduction. No promise of glory.
Just truth.
He reached for it, then stopped. “Kit,” he said, “the keeper may take. That’s you, not me. I really don’t want to become part of the city.”
Kit looked thoughtful for a moment, tracing the shape of the bracelet on her wrist. “Only the keeper and one touched by the city may safely wield the sword.” She looked up at Thorn. “Err, not sure where that came from, but you can take the sword. As bearer of the amulet, you are already bound to the city, and as keeper I seem to have access to the archives.”
Kit gave him a sideways and vaguely uncomfortable look. “There’s more. Tell you later, ok.”
Thorn nodded distractedly and reached for the sword; it settled into his grip like it had never left.
The sentinel’s eye dimmed in approval from the hall beyond.
“The blade remembers its champion. Go, keeper. The path upward waits.”
Kit watched Thorn slide the sword back at his hip.
“Felt right, didn’t it?”
He looked once more at the shield.
“It was beautiful.”
“Yes.”
“But this is plain. Hidden. Maybe that’s the right thing.”
“For you?” Kit smiled. “Yes.”
They stepped through the upward arch together.
The city’s black stone remembered them as they climbed. Runes pulsed faintly along the walls. The air grew cooler. The scent of earth and rain drifted down from above.
Thorn’s sword rested quiet at his hip.
Kit’s mark glowed steady beneath her skin.
“Almost back to the horses,” she murmured. “And whatever waits above.”
The path twisted.
Then the world folded.
Stone and shadow spun into starlight. For one impossible instant, the city vanished around them in a whirl of violet and black.
Then everything snapped back into damp earth and broken crates.
They stood once more in the cavern beneath the ruined watchtower.
The trapdoor above stood open, rain still hissing through the gap.
Kit blinked, the afterimage of the city fading from her eyes.
“Back where we started,” she said.
Thorn touched the sword at his hip.
“But not the same.”
Kit flexed her marked hand, violet light pulsing beneath her skin.
“Well,” she said, voice steady despite the wonder in it. “So much for a quiet rest until the rain stops.”
“We still can. At least we know it’s safe for the night, and there’s plenty of seasoned wood for a campfire.”
“True. Let’s go unsaddle the horses and bring our kit down.”
Even beneath the ruined tower, with rain hissing through the open trapdoor above, the animals needed tending before anything else. Thorn brushed down his bay with slow, practiced strokes, working mud from the horse’s legs and rain from his coat. Kit did the same for her black mare, murmuring soft nonsense to her when she stamped and tossed her head at the indignity of weather.
Once the horses were dry enough, fed, and watered from the clean runoff gathered in a shallow stone basin, Thorn dragged together the scattered wood from the old stores. Much of it was dry, seasoned by years underground and spared from the rain above. Soon, a campfire crackled in the center of the cavern, its orange glow pushing back the shadows between the braziers.
For the first time since finding the hidden road beneath the tower, the cave felt almost safe.
Almost.
They ate simply. Stew warmed in a small iron pot. Bread torn by hand. A little honey spread over the last crust because Kit insisted that grim underground revelations were improved by sweetness.
Thorn did not argue.
Afterward, silence settled between them.
Not cold silence. Not strained. Just the kind that came after too much wonder and too little sleep.
Kit sat cross-legged near the fire, her marked hand resting palm-up on her knee. Violet light pulsed faintly beneath her skin, soft as a heartbeat. Her gaze stayed fixed on the flames, though Thorn had the distinct sense she was looking at something much farther away.
He watched her for a while.
Then he leaned back against his saddle and said, “You were going to tell me something.”
Kit’s fingers curled slightly.
The violet mark dimmed.
“I was hoping you’d forgotten.”
“I’m old, not dead.”
That pulled a small smile from her, but it faded quickly. She glanced at him, then back to the fire.
“It’s not bad,” she said.
“That’s what people say right before explaining something bad.”
“It’s not bad,” she repeated, though her voice had gone softer. “It’s just… complicated.”
Thorn sat forward.
“Kit.”
She looked at him then, violet eyes reflecting flame and old magic.
“Close your eyes.”
He stared at her.
“That’s never a suspicious request.”
“Trust me.”
He gave her a long look.
Then he closed his eyes.
At first, there was only the fire. The warmth on his face. The soft shifting of the horses. Rain whispering above them. The distant murmur of the underground stream.
Then something else.
A presence.
Not a sound. Not a smell. Not any sense he had a name for.
Kit.
He knew exactly where she sat. Not because he remembered. Not because he heard her breathing. He could feel her, steady and bright beside the fire, a violet thread in the dark.
His breath caught sharp in his chest.
His eyes snapped open.
Kit was watching him.
Thorn stared at her.
“I can sense you.”
She nodded slowly.
“Fun fact,” she said, a little sheepishly. “You’re bound to the city.”
“I know that part.”
Her mouth tilted, not quite a smile.
“And I’m the keeper.”
Thorn’s expression shifted as the thought landed.
Kit lifted her marked hand. The violet lines beneath her skin pulsed once, answering something unseen in him.
“So,” she said carefully, “that also means you’re bound to the city’s keeper.”
The fire cracked between them.
Thorn said nothing.
Kit’s smile turned softer, nervous around the edges.
“It looks like we’re stuck with each other.”
For a long moment, the only sound was rain and flame.
Then Thorn leaned back, eyes still on her.
“Well,” he said, voice low, “I’ve had worse assignments.”
Kit laughed once, quiet and relieved.
“That’s your answer?”
“For now.”
“For now?”
He reached across the space between them and took her marked hand carefully in his. The violet light warmed beneath his fingers.
“For now,” he said, “I’m deciding whether to complain to the city about not being properly consulted.”
Kit’s smile returned in full.
“And later?”
Thorn’s thumb brushed once over the glowing mark.
“Later, Keeper,” he said, “you can tell me exactly what being your champion means.”
Her eyes softened.
She looked down at their joined hands, the firelight and violet glow mingling over their skin.
“I was afraid you’d be angry.”
“I might be,” he said.
She looked up.
His mouth curved.
“But not tonight.”
The words settled gently.
Kit shifted closer until her shoulder rested against his. Thorn did not move away. Around them, the cave held its quiet. The horses slept. The rain kept falling above, but down here, beneath stone and ruin and the memory of a lost city, the fire burned steady.
Kit’s marked hand remained in his.