Chapter 5

"Not while it's climbing."

"It's climbing because you're holding me still!"

"It's climbing because you lied."

His palm locked around my waist. Heat burned through my torn coat and the blood-soaked shirt beneath it. Under his open collar, his royal mark blazed—a sharp gold line against his skin.

The Shadow Core answered.

Black veins snapped across the floor and wrapped around my other ankle.

Seren raised her rifle. "Rafe, get her away from the crack."

"I'm trying."

"Try harder."

"You wanna take my place?"

"I want her alive long enough to explain why the fortress just called her by a dead king's name."

My stomach dropped.

The Core pulsed under my feet. Each beat drove heat through my bones. It searched for something inside me.

Not my blood.

Not my heart.

The thing behind my ribs.

The thing I'd spent one lifetime hiding.

"Helen." Rafe's voice dropped beside my ear. "Tell me what it wants."

"I don't know."

His grip tightened. "Wrong answer."

"Then ask a better question."

He spun me against him before I could break free. My back hit his chest. His breath scraped hot across my neck. One arm pinned my shoulders while the other locked over my stomach, keeping me from stepping into the widening crack.

I was trapped.

And every inch of me knew exactly how close he was.

His heartbeat slammed against my back. Fast. Angry. Alive.

Mine matched it.

"You knew this place was built over a Shadow channel," he said.

"I knew there was a channel."

"You knew it would recognize you."

"I hoped it wouldn't."

"That's not the same thing."

"No. It's worse."

The gold mark on his chest flared. Rafe jerked and sucked air through his teeth.

I twisted in his hold. "What did it do?"

"Nothing."

"Your hand's burning."

"I said it's nothing."

"You don't get to use that word with me. Not after the pact."

His gray eyes cut down to mine. They were hard, furious, and too close. Soot streaked one cheek. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

"You spent a year of your life without telling me," he said. "Don't start demanding honesty now."

"I spent a year keeping two hundred soldiers from dying."

"You spent it because you thought I wouldn't pay."

"You made it damn clear you don't pay for anything you can't measure."

His jaw flexed.

The blackstone climbed another inch.

I bit back a cry as it reached my knee. It squeezed muscle and bone. Something cold slid under my skin, then pushed deeper.

Rafe felt me tense. "Seren, get the cutters."

Seren crouched beside the crack. "Steel won't cut living blackstone."

"Silver, then."

"Silver will make it bite harder."

"So will standing there talking."

She looked up at me. "Helen, what happens if it reaches your chest?"

"It opens the Core."

Rafe went still behind me.

Seren's rifle shifted toward the rising stone. "Opens it how?"

"The way every royal vault opens. With blood."

"Whose blood?" Rafe asked.

I didn't answer.

His arm moved from my ribs to my throat. Not enough to choke me. Enough to remind me he could.

"Whose blood?"

"Mine."

"You just said that."

"I said mine because you wanted the simple answer."

"I want the true one."

The Core punched upward.

I screamed and drove my elbow into his ribs. Rafe grunted, but he didn't let go. His body folded around mine, shielding my back as black shards exploded from the floor.

One struck his shoulder.

Blood splashed across my cheek.

"Rafe!"

"I'm fine."

"You're bleeding."

"And you're yelling. We both have problems."

Seren fired.

The shot cracked through the chamber. The shard near Rafe's shoulder shattered, but three more twisted up between us. Rafe shoved me sideways. We hit a broken pillar together, his hand catching the back of my head before it struck stone.

For one second, his face hovered inches from mine.

His breath touched my lips.

Neither of us moved.

Then the Core screamed.

Not with sound. With pressure.

It slammed through the chamber and dropped Seren to one knee.

The dead Ashen agent under the rubble opened his eyes.

"The heir," he rasped. "The blood must answer the mark."

Rafe looked down at his burning chest. "You said the throne's debt would transfer to the survivor."

"Not debt." The agent coughed black fluid. "A lock."

"What lock?"

The agent's stare found me. "The king never died alone."

My blood turned cold.

Rafe turned toward me. "Helen."

"Don't."

"What does that mean?"

"It means he's dying and talking nonsense."

"He's naming you."

"He named the heir. There are hundreds of royal bloodlines in the old records."

"Not living ones."

The agent laughed once. It broke into a wet cough. "She carries the first crown. The one they buried beneath Hollowglass. The one the Directorate cut from the royal line and—"

I kicked a loose stone into his face.

His head snapped back.

Seren stared at me. "You could've let him finish."

"He was about to die anyway."

"That wasn't why you stopped him."

Rafe caught my wrist. His fingers were hot enough to hurt. "You're going to tell me what you are."

"Take your hand off me."

"No."

"Rafe."

"You want me to protect you? Then stop giving the thing under this fortress more reasons to kill us."

The blackstone reached halfway up my thigh.

Its pull had reached inside my body. It wasn't just climbing. It was dragging something out of me, strand by strand.

A memory.

A name.

The power I'd buried when I woke in my second life with my first death still fresh in my bones.

Rafe stepped between me and the rising crack.

"Look at me," he said.

"I am looking at you."

"No. You're hiding behind anger. Look at me."

"Move."

"Say it. Say what you hid."

His mark flared again.

The blackstone stopped.

Only for a breath.

Rafe saw it. So did I.

"It listens to you," he said.

"It listens to the mark."

"My mark."

"Your royal mark."

His eyes narrowed. "You knew I had one."

"I knew you had royal blood."

"How?"

"Marek told me."

That hit harder than the cannon blast.

Rafe's grip loosened by half an inch. "Marek told you?"

"Before he tried to carve out my Core."

"You were engaged to him."

"I was his weapon before I was his fiancée."

"And you knew he was hunting royal blood?"

"I knew he was hunting something. I didn't know it was you."

"You didn't know?"

"Don't use that tone with me. I was busy surviving his knife."

He stepped closer. His knee pressed between mine, stopping me from sliding backward as the floor broke apart. His body held me upright. His fingers shifted from my wrist to my palm and turned it over.

A thin black cut had opened across my hand.

Blood welled inside it.

The mark on his chest answered.

A black line jumped from my palm to his fingers.

Rafe swore and tried to pull away.

The line tightened.

"Don't break it," I said.

"You tell me that now?"

"If you break it, the Core will tear through both of us."

"How do you know?"

"I read the old command records."

"You read forbidden royal records?"

"I read everything Marek ordered me to read."

"And you never thought to mention that?"

"You never asked what I did before I became your problem."

The line crawled over his wrist.

Rafe's face tightened. His gold mark burned brighter, but it couldn't stop the black. The line moved from his wrist to his forearm, then vanished beneath his sleeve.

"It's spreading," Seren said.

"I can feel that," Rafe snapped.

"Then do something."

"I need her to command it."

My mouth went dry. "No."

He looked at me. "No?"

"I won't command the Core."

"Why?"

"It doesn't obey commands. It takes payment."

"You already paid."

"I paid for the fortress. Not for this."

"Then name your price."

The words hit too deep.

His thumb pressed against the cut in my palm. His blood mixed with mine. Heat raced up my arm, sharp and intimate, and the blackstone around my legs shuddered.

"Rafe," I warned.

"Tell me what it wants."

"It wants the royal heir."

"That's you."

"It wants the mark too."

His gaze dropped to where our blood touched. "Then we'll give it both."

"You don't understand."

"Explain it."

"The Core doesn't open for two people. It chooses one vessel."

"And if it chooses you?"

"I die when it wakes."

His eyes lifted to mine. "Why?"

"The royal mark is the lock. My blood is the key. When the key turns, the lock breaks."

Seren rose, rifle trained on the crack. "Rafe, get away from her."

"No."

"That's not a suggestion."

"Shoot me and the line stays attached."

Seren swore. "Helen, tell him to release you."

I pulled against his hand. "Rafe, release me."

His mouth tightened. "No."

"You're going to die."

"You keep saying that like it's new information."

"I mean it."

"So do I."

The Core surged again.

This time, the blackstone ripped free from the floor and wrapped around my waist. Rafe caught me before it could yank me into the crack. His arm locked around my middle.

My hands landed against his bare throat where his collar had torn open.

His skin was burning.

Mine was colder by the second.

"Rafe," I whispered.

"Don't look down."

"I'm not afraid of it."

"You're shaking."

"I'm afraid of what it'll do to you."

He went very still.

The words hung between us, too honest to take back.

His forehead touched mine. "Then stop fighting alone."

"You don't know how to do anything else."

"Neither do you."

"I know how to survive."

"You know how to spend yourself until there's nothing left."

My throat tightened. "And you know how to make people pay for standing near you."

"Maybe we're a perfect match."

"Don't joke."

"I'm not."

His nose brushed mine.

The Core pulsed beneath us.

I could feel his mouth a breath away. His fingers spread over my stomach, holding me steady, but the touch wasn't only restraint anymore. His thumb moved once along the edge of my ribs.

A warning.

Or a question.

I should've shoved him away.

Instead, I said, "If you do this, you don't get to blame me when it hurts."

His eyes stayed on my mouth. "I blame you for plenty already."

"Coward."

"Liar."

The blackstone tightened.

Rafe drove his marked hand against the center of my chest.

Gold burst across his palm.

The contact tore a cry from me.

A black line shot out from beneath his mark, crossed his chest, and stretched through the space between us. It struck my sternum like heated wire. Then it sank into my skin without breaking it.

For one terrible second, I couldn't breathe.

The Core stopped moving.

The blackstone froze around my body.

Rafe sagged against me, his hand still pressed to my chest. His breath came hard against my cheek.

"One minute," I gasped.

"What?"

"That's all it gives us. One minute before it starts taking."

"Then tell me how to use it."

"We don't use it. We hold it shut."

"With what?"

"The pact."

The black line pulsed between us.

Each pulse dragged heat from his mark into my blood. I felt his pain in my bones. He felt mine. There was no room left for lies. No place to hide the crown buried inside me.

Rafe's eyes sharpened as the connection deepened.

"I can see it," he said.

"No."

"A throne. A dead king. You standing beside him."

"Get out of my head."

"You weren't Helen Vale when you met him."

"Rafe—"

"You had the crown. You watched it fall. You knew the king's death would leave a debt, and you let me sign the pact anyway."

"I didn't know it would choose you."

"But you knew it could."

The black line tightened across our chests.

I grabbed his shirt. "I needed your mark."

"For protection?"

"For access."

"To the Core?"

"To the throne's weapon."

His face hardened. "You planned to use me."

"I planned to use you for the weapon—"