Chapter 30 · The Heir's Blood Gate

"Don't."

Kael's voice cuts through the grinding roar of stone splitting apart, and I'm already halfway through the seal, fingers burning where they touch the cracked silver.

"She's my mom," I say, and I don't look back at him.

"She's bait."

The woman behind the chains lifts her head. Her eyes are the same green I see in the mirror every morning. She mouths my name—my real name, the one nobody's used since I was eight—and something inside me snaps.

I shove both hands into the crack.

The seal screams. Not a sound. A feeling, like glass breaking inside my skull. The obsidian mark on my wrist flares white-hot, and the chains around her wrists start to dissolve, link by link.

"Nora, stop."

Kael's hand closes around my shoulder, and I throw him off. He staggers back, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. The inheritance mark on his throat is pulsing, black veins spreading down into his collarbone.

"You don't get to tell me what to do anymore," I say.

"I'm trying to keep you alive."

"By letting her rot down here?"

"By keeping that thing sealed."

I freeze. "What thing?"

He doesn't answer.