Page 109 of Crossing Fire

“You’re right,” Dom said, and each word felt like a nail in a coffin. “I don’t want her burdened with this.” His voice was almost pleading.

”It’s not for you to decide. There’s no question that it is for her to take. Even you can’t control everything,” said Sloan. “You will just have to coach her on what to expect when the offer is made.”

Dom looked at me and there was something in his expression, a bracing sort of regret that made my breath catch in my throat.

I touched his cheek, a comforting gesture.

“I’m sorry, but you must pick it up,” Dom told me, and the words were torn from him.

“Okay,” I said, and bent down to take it, operating on the blind trust that Dom knew more about what was happening than I did and had my best interests at heart.

It was attached to a piece of twine the color of the dirt, and gingerly I took the string between two fingers. The object was a dull red I saw as I started to pull it out, and roughly the size and shape of a small chicken egg. It was still mostly buried, but when I applied the slightest pressure the whole thing came clear as though it was throwing itself at me.

I didn’t want to touch it directly so I lifted it closer, still on a tie, to study. Several little faces were shaped into it. Their expressions made it look like they were in some sort of acute agony.

“Hold it in your palm, count to seven, and then put it away,” Sloan told me.

I placed it in my hand and immediately had to stifle the urge to recoil, to throw it far from me. It felt like flesh, perhaps like an organ dried on the outside, but still filled with a bit of blood.

I counted to seven.

My dress had pockets and I placed it in one, wrenching away from it as soon as I could. I shook my hand as though that could erase the feel of it from my skin.

Sloan nodded decisively. “Good. Keep it safe, and don’t speak of it again until Dom brings it up. He’ll know when it’s safe to discuss it.”

Ookaay.

And then the ceremony concluded like nothing bizarre had just happened.

Countless hours of celebrating later, he brought it up again.

“If it tries to bargain with you, you will turn it down, no matter what it offers. If it begins to vibrate or move in any way you must tell me right away, and I’ll give you further instructions. If it speaks to you, stay silent and come find me. Other than that, we’ll just put it somewhere safe, in a room with no windows. It must never see an eclipse, and it is better if it is kept from sunrise and sunset, as well. I wish this wasn’t your burden, but if The Grove had ahold of something like this, it is good that we have pried it away, whether or not that was its intent.”

I was as lost as ever, but his instructions seemed easy enough to follow, at least. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“When the time comes I can, but not yet. Just trust me and don’t veer from those instructions.”

I rolled my eyes. Fucking druids.

A few weeks later, we had another ceremony. One for just the two of us.

We hiked five hours to a spot in the Rockies we’d found years ago.

It was no one but us and the earth and the sky.

We were on a mountain summit, a rare slice of land that felt right on the edge of the world and approaching heaven, where the clouds met a pristine lake that was surrounded by fields of wildflowers.

He laid me down among the riotous blooms. Purple, red, orange, yellow glowed around our bodies, framing us, my flaxen hair pooling around us like a mantle.

He was braced over me with a warm smile so wide his arresting eyes wrinkled up at the corners.

He touched a spot above my head.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“The way your hair fell, the way it’s glowing in the sunlight, it almost looks like a halo.”

“You know I saw an angel halfling on my mission with Helen, before it all went south. I have to say there was some resemblance there, but I think you know me well enough by now not to accuse me of having even one angelic tendency.”

He smiled and kissed my nose. “You might have a few.”

We swore a blood oath there, alone together at the edge of the world. This was a heart oath, the cuts deep into our chests and pressed together to mingle while we pledged ourselves.

The multitude of vows might have been overkill at this point, but overkill was a specialty we both shared.

“There will be no one but you until my last breath,” I vowed to him.

“Until the stars fall,” vowed Dom.