Page 118 of The First Scar
"Tomorrow." He turned toward the tunnel, the dragon on his back already fading back to ink. "Get some rest. You'll need it."
I stayed on the floor, lungs wringing themselves dry. The only way I'd learned to hold my power was by making it someone else's life on the line. That should have horrified me. It just made me tired.
Chapter 27
OATH-STONE: THREE DAYS LEFT
AMARIA
The Flame Gates loomed before us—two massive doors of void-iron, archaic and seamless, carved with glyphs that writhedin the torchlight. There were no handles, no hinges, just smooth dark metal that drank the light and gave nothing back.
Behind them: the Codex. Every bruise, every betrayal, every drop of blood we'd spilled—sealed behind two doors that didn't even have the decency to offer a handle.
The entire camp had gathered behind me.
Serenya was closest, her hand brushing mine. Maxx, uncharacteristically quiet. Brannick, jaw set, fingers resting on the hilt of his sword like he expected the doors themselves to attack. Dreadscale, still as carved stone, his dragon tattoo rippling faintly.
Every pair of eyes in that tunnel was aimed at me like a loaded weapon. Their hope. Their fear. Same thing, when you're the one expected to deliver.
I didn't let my eyes sweep the back of the tunnel the way they'd started doing without permission in every room I entered. He wasn't here. He wasn’t coming. Which meant he wasn’t innocent.
"The keys, Amaria," Kaelen said.
I reached into my satchel and pulled them free.
The Light Key pulsed against my palm, warm and alive. I'd nearly died for this one—a Stone-Wight waking beneath my feet, my fusion failing, Brannick throwing me his blade at the last second.
The Shadow Key was its opposite. So dark it drank the air around it. I'd bled for this one too—but by choice, to sell a lie that kept an innocent man breathing.
I stepped forward.
The doors waited, patient as tombs.
I lifted the Light Key first, pressing it into the hollow on the left. The metal inflamed, warmth spreading through the door, glyphs igniting silver-white.
Then the Shadow Key, into the hollow on the right. It bit into my fingers, sharp enough to sting. The glyphs on that side blazed black, a darkness that somehowglowed.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
The Flame Gates swung open.
The sound was guttural—the voice of something waking after centuries of sleep. The seam between the doors split, void-iron grinding against void-iron, and a rush of air escaped from within. Burnt offerings and forgotten prayers.
The space beyond the gates dropped away—a sunken amphitheater carved straight down into the bedrock, terraced rings of blackened basalt descending toward a central floor thirty feet below. This wasn't a room. It was a mouth.
Our footsteps echoed too long. The sound bounced down the tiers and came back changed, stretched thin, like the stone was swallowing it in pieces.
Then the Veil-fire erupted.
Black-silver flames tore from the stone floor, twisting and shrieking, throwing wild shadows up the terraced walls. A curtain of hungry flame surrounded the altar at the heart of it all.
Where the Codex would be.
Maxx let out a long whistle. "Well. That's not terrifying at all."
Brannick muttered something in the old tongue—a ward against evil, maybe, or just a curse.
I stepped through the gates, and the others followed.
