Chapter 32 · Inside the Source Gate

"Don't touch it." Kael's hand locked around my wrist before my fingers hit the gate's surface.

I yanked back. "I have to."

"You don't know what it does."

"I know what happens if I don't." The gate hummed in front of us, ten feet tall and bleeding red light into the air. The ground underneath it was cracked open, stone split like skin. "You die. Both worlds go down. I saw it."

"You saw one version."

"Thirty-one versions." I pulled free and stepped forward. The heat coming off the gate made my skin crawl. "Every single time, you walk in and you don't come back out."

Kael moved between me and the gate. His armor was scorched black on one side, blood running down his jaw from a cut over his eye. "Then I don't come out. That's not your problem."

"It is when I'm the reason you're here."

"You're the reason I'm still alive."

"For now." I shoved past him. My shoulder hit his chest plate and the impact rattled up my arm. "Move."

He didn't. "Nora."

"Move, Kael."

"Listen to me—"

"I've listened thirty-one times. You always say the same thing.