Chapter 32 · The Price of the Judgment

"Don't touch the core." Dax caught my wrist before my hand reached the black stone.

His grip was hot enough to hurt. Not warm. Hot. The black vow under his skin had spread up his arm in thin, dark lines, and every one of them pulsed against my fingers.

"Let go," I said.

"Mara, listen to me. The judgment is still active. If you break the seal wrong, it will finish reading the sentence."

"It already did." I shoved at his chest. "It named me. It made me the sacrifice. What part of that sounded unfinished?"

His jaw locked. "The part where you survive."

Behind him, the old core cracked open another inch. Black light leaked through the split stone and crawled over the floor in narrow lines. They moved like ink searching for a page.

The judgment ledger sat on the altar between us. Its cover was made from gray hide, its corners burned white, its pages turning by themselves. Every page carried a name. Every name glowed for one breath before the letters sank into the paper.

Leora's name was still burning near the bottom.

My name waited underneath it.

"You signed it," I said.