10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

When Rory woke up the next morning, the inn was blessedly quiet.

Gray was still sleeping next to him, stretched out on his back, one hand carelessly thrown across Rory, and the other partially covering his face, no doubt to shield his eyes from the bright morning sunshine spilling from the dingy window. He looked more peaceful and more relaxed than Rory had seen him before, even under the bruises scattered over his face and torso. Rory didn't want to wake him, but in the next moment, one brilliant blue eye opened.

"We're still alive," Gray croaked groggily.

Not quite the romantic words that Rory had hoped he'd hear this morning upon waking; especially after the night before. What did you expect? he thought A confession of love? And maybe he hadn't expected it necessarily, but he'd wanted it. Nobody had ever loved him in spite of being a prince, and Rory discovered that was something he dearly desired. He wanted to be loved not because he was royal, not because he was beautiful, not because he was rich, and not because he spoke so many languages and was famous throughout the kingdoms for his translations and analyses.

After all that, what's left? that annoying voice inside Rory's head asked.

Rory didn't know, and he knew enough to realize that if he himself was in the dark, he couldn't possibly expect another to discover it. Even someone as clever as Gray.

"We're still alive," Rory finally murmured.

Gray groaned and stretched. "You look like you're thinking too hard for this early in the morning."

Rory might be inexperienced, but he knew he couldn't say, I want you to love me, but I don't know what I want you to love me for.

"I was thinking of the riddle Evrard told us yesterday, about the cave, and what it could mean," Rory lied.

Gray groaned again. "It's definitely too early to think about anything Evrard says."

Rory secretly agreed but admitting so would also mean admitting he'd lied. "We need to find the ring, the Bearer of Truth," he offered instead. "We should get up and get ready to go. Didn't you say the road up to the mountain is rather difficult?" He didn't want to get out of bed. He wanted to stay here and stay naked with Gray, but he remembered the promises he'd made that night in the valley.

If I get out of this, I will make different choices.

The Rory of old would have self-indulgently let the quest for the ring slide, trading the unpleasant realities of their journey for the much more pleasant pastimes to be found in bed. But he'd already acknowledged that he needed to leave that Rory behind, so instead of reaching for Gray, he climbed out of bed, searching for his clothes.

"You really mean it, don't you?" Gray asked, watching him with eyes suddenly and intently awake.

"Find the ring and take back my throne?" Rory pulled on his tunic. It pulled slightly against his bruised cheekbone as it slipped over his head, and he grimaced. "I do mean it."

Gray was quiet for a long moment. "You are not what I thought you were when we first met."

Glancing back at him, Rory smiled. "I believe the feeling is mutual. I didn't know you were familiar with so much territory outside of the valley, and I didn't know you could wield a sword as well as some of my guardswomen."

"That's one thing I'm good at," Gray grumbled, sliding out of bed and also reaching for his clothes. "Fighting for my life."

When they were dressed, Gray slipped the bar off the door and opened it only a fraction, checking both directions to make sure that nobody had lingered overnight, waiting for them to emerge. But the hallway was empty, and as they descended the staircase, the main common room was quiet.

"Any food?" the innkeeper asked as they paused by the door to the outside yard. "It's included with your room."

Gray looked him up and then back down. Rory was startled to see his gaze suddenly blazing with righteous anger. "I wouldn't take another scrap from your table, sir," Gray said, the edge of his voice hard and uncompromising.

He turned and walked out the door, leaving Rory to scramble to follow.

"Do you think he gave those men information about us?" Rory asked as they walked towards the stables to fetch Evrard. "Why didn't you say so last night?"

"Of course he did," Gray said, his voice still hard. "How else would they know? It's not an uncommon practice."

"Oh," Rory said.

"And I didn't say so last night because I was too . . . distracted to think clearly," Gray admitted, and this time this tone was softer. "A good distraction."

They entered the stables and stopping in front of Evrard's stall, received a snooty look from him. There were people milling about, including a stableboy cleaning out a stall, so he could not speak, but words were often unnecessary for Evrard to express his feelings.

Gray led Evrard out to the water trough, let him drink his fill, and then they both mounted, and rode out of town. The outskirts on the other side of Nargash were equally as poor, but Rory still had a smile on his face that he couldn't quite dismiss.

"I see you two had an interesting evening," Evrard said. "Bruises, Gray?"

"Robbers," Gray said between clenched teeth. "Unsuccessful robbers."

"Did you draw Lion's Breath to fight them?" Evrard asked, his deceptively casual tone cluing Rory in that this was actually a rather important question, though he could not figure out why. Evrard knew that Gray was currently wearing Rory's sword on his belt. Why would it matter if he used it?

"I didn't want to and I didn't have to," Gray said dryly. "I had no intention of motivating them any further." He turned his head to glance back at Rory. "Did your ancestors have to be quite so generous with the gold and jewels on the scabbard? It's like you wanted to announce to everyone you're carrying a priceless weapon."

"I think . . ." Rory hesitated. "I actually think they did want to announce that particular fact."

Gray shook his head in disgust and muttered something under his breath that Rory couldn't quite make out.

"Not everyone is hiding," Evrard pointed out primly.

"No," Gray said, his annoyance clearly spiking. "Just me."

Rory thought that he was also in hiding, and that Evrard spent every moment hiding his true existence from anyone who couldn't understand it, but despite waking up in a seemingly good mood, Gray's mood had worsened with every step Evrard took toward the Karloffs. Rory didn't understand it, but he wasn't stupid enough to ask why.

The road grew rougher and steeper the further they rode, and the further from Nargash they got, the less people they saw on the road. By midday, they had not passed a single traveler in some time, and even though Evrard seemed to be in good spirits, Gray insisted they stop to give him a chance to rest.

"The rest of the way is difficult," was all Gray would say, and even though Evrard grumbled at Gray's lack of belief in his strength, eventually he stopped by a small shallow pond, and drank his fill.

While Evrard was refreshing himself, Rory wandered over to where Gray stood, silently staring at the tall, craggy peaks overshadowing the road.

"I've been thinking of the riddle Evrard gave us," Rory began. This time it wasn't even a lie.

Gray glanced over at him. "Have you really? Why?"

They'd been riding for several hours from Nargash, and Rory had had lots of time to consider the riddle, how they should approach the search, and how he should approach Gray about his thoughts. He'd remembered how he had managed to convince Gray to accompany them at all; it had been all logic. Emotional entreaties weren't going to work on Gray. Rory was going to have to stick to basic, solid, irrefutable fact.

"Because it's early fall," Rory said, "and those mountains are large. The area between them won't be small, either, and if we want to have a hope of finding this cave before the snows start and we have to give up or freeze to death, we need to use the riddle to figure out where to look."

Gray was silent for a long moment. Rory decided that in this particular case, silence was acceptance, and continued. "Between two mountains of great stature lie veracity, fidelity, and certainty. Tread the peak and scale the valley. Solve the puzzle and gain the ring."

"And that means?"

"I'm not sure yet," Rory admitted.

Gray crossed his arms over his broad chest. "So, when you figure it out, get back to me."

The last thing anyone would ever have accused Rory of being was stupid, and it seemed to him, with several events as evidence, that each time he and Gray grew closer, he always retreated back behind his walls of cold, icy disdain afterwards. It was undoubtedly annoying, but now that he had more than one incident to analyze, it was easy enough to separate out the emotion and compare the differences and the similarities. No doubt Gray would've been upset if Rory told him his reactions were predictable, but it turned out there were very few differences and many similarities. Once he'd realized it, Rory could set aside his own emotional reaction, firmly telling himself getting mad served no real purpose. It wouldn't change Gray's behavior; the only thing that would do that was continuing to chip away at those formidable walls.

That realization reached, it made perfect sense to find a topic of mutual interest. Finding the ring was easily the best choice.

"I do have a few thoughts, though," Rory added hurriedly, not ready to be dismissed quite yet. Not at least until he'd made some progress on demolishing Gray's boundaries.

Raising an eyebrow, Gray motioned for him to continue.

"We begin by breaking down the riddle into its parts. Three synonyms for truth, when the composer could have simply used truth."

"Maybe it was for annoying embellishment," Gray said, his voice warming just enough that Rory was encouraged to continue.

"Or maybe for a purpose," Rory insisted. "So there may be three of something. On top of that, the riddle asks the recipient to tread the peak and scale the valley."

Gray frowned. "Those are . . . switched? Are you sure you remember it correctly?"

Shooting him a look, Rory shook his head. "I'm not wrong. It's tread the peak and scale the valley."

"And that means?"

Though Rory was considered one of the brilliant modern minds, Gray was certainly no slouch either. He cut through all the extraneous information and always managed to single out the most important fact.

"Again, I'm not sure, but I do have an idea."

Gray snorted. "Do I need to pry it out of you?"

"It's . . . it's a stretch. You probably won't like it."

"You're assuming I like any part of this," Gray said dryly.

It shouldn't have hurt. Rory had come to the conclusion that Gray always pushed him away once Rory grew too close for comfort. It wasn't personal. It didn't mean that Gray didn't like Rory as much as Rory liked Gray. In fact, all evidence pointed to the opposite. But despite all that application of logic, he couldn't quite deny the emotional sting of Gray's words.

"Right, of course." Rory hated how flustered he sounded. How emotional. He remembered when he could approach problems rationally for days—for months—on end. But since meeting Gray, he'd never felt as controlled by his emotions as he did now. They fluctuated all over the place—good and bad and every shade in between—and still, despite the annoyance of it, Rory wouldn't trade this experience for a coldly clinical one. Gray made him feel alive in a way he never had before.

He cleared his throat and continued. "My theory is that the riddle is telling us to look in the opposite location than it's actually telling us to. Specifically, since the riddle states we need to search between the two mountains, in the valley located in the middle, I think we need to go higher."

"To the top of the mountains," Gray added flatly. "No, I don't particularly like it. It'll be a lot of extra time and effort and energy misspent if you're wrong."

"And then, there's the question of which mountain."

"Do you have any idea which one it might be?" Gray asked with a frown.

Rory internally cringed. There was so much of this he was piecing together with the theory that the author of this riddle had meant their inconsistencies of verbiage to be secret messages to the listener. But maybe Gray was right after all, and they were simply extraneous authorial flourishes. "It's possible that the number three, based on the number of adjectives used for the word, truth, is somehow related to which mountain we would need to climb. You know the geography of the Karloffs, do you remember anything that might help us?"

"Really?" Gray scoffed. "That's what you were hoping for? That I might remember something from a book I read fifteen years ago about a faraway mountain range?"

This time Rory externally cringed. "Yes?"

Gray sighed. "You really are desperate, aren't you?"

"You've met Sabrina," Rory said, raising his chin and trying to remember all the promises he'd made. If I get out of this, I will make different choices. "I can't let her continue to rule in my stead. I must find a way to stop her, and this ring is my best chance. So yes, I am desperate."

The incredulity on Gray's face softened. "I do know her, and I wish the best way to stop her were to march to Beaulieu and put Lion's Breath through her heart, but it seems like it isn't, so I guess I need to trust you."

On this? Rory wondered. Or on everything? But he wasn't naive enough to ask the question out loud, because he knew Gray was burying himself with denial, and Rory probably wouldn't like his answer.

"You do," Rory said. "The number three. Anything to do with that number or what it might represent, when it comes to a mountain."

Evrard had finished drinking, and while he had slowly trotted over, he had surprisingly elected not to involve himself in the conversation he and Gray were having. Evrard refusing to add his opinion wasn't completely unheard of, but it certainly felt unusual, and Rory tucked the thought away to unpack later, when he was working less intently on the problem at hand.

"What do mountains have?" Gray asked rhetorically. "Rocks? Trees? Cliffs?"

"What about water?" Rory asked. "Mountains have streams and rivers, and they usually feed into larger bodies of water."

Suddenly, Gray flashed Rory a bright grin. "Waterfalls! The Larger Karloff, it has three waterfalls! And the biggest one? It's right at the top."

Rory grinned back. "Tread the peak and scale the valley."

"Exactly what I was thinking."

Gray was still smiling and looking at him like he was a miracle as Evrard cleared his throat. "Are we ready to journey to the Larger Karloff then?"

It was hard to tear his eyes away from Gray's handsome, beaming face, but Rory managed it, barely. "We were right, then?"

Evrard glanced down his nose at Rory. "If I knew, wouldn't I tell you?"

"Not likely," Gray muttered, the edges of his lips still curling into that irresistible smile. Rory wanted to tell him how much he liked it when he smiled, but he was afraid his confession might cause Gray's walls to go back up—and that was the very last thing Rory wanted.

"Of course you'd tell us," Rory soothed, but he shot Gray a commiserating look. The list of things Evrard would share did seem to be considerably shorter than the list of things he wouldn't. But maybe that's why he'd repeated the riddle—he'd hoped Rory would be able to solve it, and he had, with Gray's help.

It wasn't the first time Gray had been essential to this quest, and Rory had a feeling that it definitely wouldn't be the last.

I don't ever want to do this alone, he thought, but pushed it aside, because no matter what they were sharing together now, it was impossible for Rory to imagine Gray giving up a future in his valley. It was why he'd agreed to come on this journey at all.

"The Larger Karloff it is," Gray said and mounted, holding a hand out to help Rory mount Evrard—something he'd never done before. It wasn't like Rory wasn't eminently capable of doing it himself, but it meant something for Gray to keep helping him. It made them feel less like two random people coming together to accomplish something and more like a team committed to each other.

"Of course it had to be the Larger Karloff," Gray grumbled as they continued climbing. They'd been heading higher and higher for hours. A little while ago, Gray had suggested that they dismount and walk alongside Evrard, since the incline of the path had made it impossible for Evrard to even trot.

Rory shaded his eyes from the sun and stared up at the looming peak. "Do you think we'll reach the top by nightfall?" he asked.

He almost regretted the question, because Gray frowned, the lines settling deeply into his face. "We need to. I don't want to be exposed out here on the side of the mountain after it gets dark."

Wordlessly, Evrard increased his pace, and Rory scrambled to keep up. "Do you think it's possible the cave is hidden behind the waterfall?" he asked Gray.

Gray shrugged. "I think it'll be a miracle if we find the cave at all. We've figured out one interpretation of Evrard's riddle, but who knows if it's the right one?"

"It needs to be the right one," Rory vowed. He knew they didn't have the supplies to spend weeks, or even days, on the mountain. And there was so little time to lose. He needed to get back to Fontaine, before Sabrina could plan more unpleasant surprises. He also wanted to travel back to the valley, with the hope that maybe some of his guard had survived.

"What are you going to do after you get this ring?" Gray asked. "Waltz right into Beaulieu and shove the ring onto her finger and demand she answer questions?"

Rory frowned. "I don't know."

He'd hoped that Evrard would be able to shed some light on the plan after finding the Bearer of Truth, but despite the subject of their conversation, Evrard stayed frustratingly silent.

"I could put it on," Rory offered. "I could put it on and be interrogated in front of the court."

"She has not truly exposed herself to you, which was no doubt part of her calculated plan," Evrard inserted. Of course, now that he chose to speak up, it was to prove how Rory's suggestion wouldn't work after all.

"Then what is the point of this ring?" Gray demanded. "We're nearly killing ourselves climbing this mountain to get it, and we don't even know who's going to wear it?"

"The plan will be clear in time," Evrard answered serenely.

Rory definitely did not feel as calm as the unicorn, and Gray seemed especially agitated, even for him.

I swore I'd make different choices, Rory thought. My new choices can't be any worse than the old ones.

But the problem was there wasn't any certainty that was true. They didn't know what they'd be forced to face at the top of the Larger Karloff, they didn't know if they'd find the ring, and even if they did, they had no idea how to use it to its best advantage. It seemed to Rory that everything hinged on a series of unknowns, and the realization dimmed even his natural optimism.

Gray was not naturally optimistic, and it showed as their journey continued up the mountain.

They passed the first, lowest waterfall, a small, steady trickle. "The Wash," Gray called it as they walked past.

"It's impressive that you even remember their names," Rory said. He thought he'd known much about the geography of the area, but Gray kept proving that belief to be false. He was incredibly, intimately familiar with the geography of the roads and paths around here, even though technically none of this territory was part of Ardglass.

"My old tutor, Rhys, he loved geography and was always assigning me maps to study," Gray said, in a rough, low voice.

His tutor? Rory wondered what position his father had occupied in Ardglass that Gray would have had a tutor. And then there was the confident certain way he held a sword, which spoke of extensive—and expensive—training that was not usually available to boys who grew up to work on farms.

Who had Gray been before he'd run away? As much as he disparaged Evrard's closemouthed attitude, Gray had plenty of secrets of his own. Secrets Rory didn't expect him to share even if he asked about them.

"Well, that was lucky," Rory said.

"Something like that," Gray retorted darkly.

The sun was falling lower in the sky when they heard the roar of the second waterfall. Much larger than the Wash, it fell in crashing sheets of white-tipped waves to the rocky pond below. "What is this one called?" Rory asked, as they walked by. He kept his voice low, despite the noise. The path had essentially fallen away, and now Evrard was just picking his way through the forest, always heading up, further and further until Rory felt his lungs burn with the thinner air. A ring of trees surrounded the pool, and it seemed that no human had ever been here before. But it was named, and it had been on maps, and Gray had seen them.

"The Thunder," Gray said, turning away. The frown was now ever-present on his face, and Rory knew he was concerned about the coming darkness and the final climb, which was taxing all their energies. They would reach the final waterfall at the top of the mountain, and despite their exhaustion, would need to conquer whatever stood between them and the ring.

But even though Rory felt the echo of fear in himself, he'd also discovered a deep-seated, intense desire to not only survive this test, but to win.

They pressed on, passing by the Thunder without any further comments.

The third and final waterfall—the waterfall all their hopes rested upon—was silent in comparison to the Thunder. They were nearly on top of it before they actually heard it. The sun was setting, but the water was a shining, rainbow-hued wonder of fog and mist, cascading over the smooth cliff into a peaceful, ethereal turquoise pool below. "The tallest waterfall in the Karloffs," Gray said softly.

Rory didn't speak, but peered closer, hoping to see through the thick cloud of mist to what might lie in the darkness behind it.

"We will rest here," Evrard announced, not even consulting Gray, "and you will swim through the pool to the cave behind in the morning. It's not safe to try it in this growing dusk."

"How do you even know there's a cave behind there?" Gray demanded.

Naturally, Evrard ignored this question.

"I suppose a fire would be too much to ask for," Rory said.

The look Gray shot him was what Rory had expected. There was no point in asking for a fire, because he couldn't have one.

"In the morning," Evrard answered instead. "The water will be very cold. You'll need the warmth a fire provides."

If you make it back, was unspoken between them.

Rory arranged a bed of pine boughs and needles, which felt slightly more comfortable than simply curling up on the forest floor. Evrard tucked in between two trees and nibbled at a bit of ivy poking out. Gray did not bother prepping the ground at all, just tucked his cloak around him and sat, cross-legged against a fallen log.

"I'll keep watch," Gray said when Rory gave him a questioning look.

"No," Evrard interrupted shortly. "I will keep watch. You will need your energy, Gray."

Rory was surprised when Gray didn't argue, but maybe he was more tired than he'd let on, because soon his soft snores were resonating throughout the little campsite.

I made different choices was the last thought Rory had before joining him in a deep, dreamless sleep.

"It's called the Veil," Gray said, as he and Rory gazed at the waterfall, which was even more spectacularly eerie in the morning light.

"Do you know who named these?" Rory asked, but Gray shook his head.

"The maps were old," he said. "Very old."

"As old as Evrard?" Rory asked, teasing. It was so much easier to joke with Gray than to face the intimidatingly deep pond and the hidden cave beyond.

"I did hear that," Evrard said stately, coming up next to them. "You should take your daggers, but leave Lion's Breath here," he added.

"For a unicorn that does next to no fighting, you certainly have a lot of opinions on weapons and arming for battle," Gray retorted.

"The unicorn is merely my chosen form," Evrard said. "I could defend myself if required."

"Hopefully it never comes to that," Rory said. The higher they'd climbed yesterday, the pricklier Gray had become, and the more he poked at Evrard. Rory found himself occupying the mediator position in their group, even though he wasn't sure he was very good at it. But you'll need to be, if you have any hope of being a fair, honest, trustworthy king, he thought.

Gray leaned down and began to unlace his boots. "We'll leave our boots here," he told Rory, "but stay in breeches and tunic. They'll slow us down, but I don't want to fight whatever is back there naked."

If their situation had been less dire, Rory might have impudently responded that he would love to see Gray fight naked. But the concept that they might not win this fight was sobering enough for Rory to keep the thought to himself.

Rory followed Gray's suggestion and left his boots sitting next to Evrard and watched as Gray reluctantly unbuckled the scabbard of Lion's Breath, the gold scabbard shining brilliantly in the sunshine.

Evrard bent his head over the sword as Gray carefully placed the sword next to his boots. It seemed that Gray was far more reluctant to leave the weapon behind than Rory, but then surely that was only because Gray was uncertain which kind of foe they would be facing, and no doubt he wanted every advantage they could find.

This time Rory did not wait for Gray to resurface for him to dive into the pool after him. If the mountain lake had been chilly, but warmed by the sun, the Veil's water was bitterly cold, and it stole Rory's breath.

Still, he forced his legs to churn and his head broke the surface right after Gray's. The frigid water turned Gray's skin pale, and his eyes shone starkly out of his carved white features. "After you," Gray said bitterly, "before we freeze to death."

Swimming helped keep some of the worst of the cold at bay, and luckily the pool itself was not very big. They crossed it in a few minutes, Rory's shorter strokes leaving him slightly behind Gray's longer, stronger ones. When Rory reached the mist, he held his breath, not because of the water, but because of the icy fear clogging his lungs. But as he passed underneath it, nothing happened except air even colder and much darker. A smooth ridge of stone greeted them, and Gray climbed up out of the pool with no difficulty. Rory's hands, shaking with nerves and the temperature, scrabbled helplessly against the smooth stone. He felt his panic rising, making it hard to think—logically or emotionally, or in any way at all. I'm going to die here, freezing and alone, his mind screamed.

But then a hand shot out of the gloom, strong and sure, and Rory would have recognized it anywhere. He grasped it and it hauled him out of the water.

"Thank you," Rory gasped as he shivered in the cool air of the cave.

"It's what I'm here for," Gray said shortly, and then turned away to peer through the gloom.

You're here because I want you to be, because I need you to be, Rory argued inside his own head. But he pushed the stupid thought away because right now it didn't matter why Gray was here, only that he was, and Rory knew he couldn't face any of this alone.

The cave was dark, shielded by the Veil's mist, but even as they crept deeper in, nothing interrupted the smooth stone walls except for a few pebbles Rory stumbled over. "Careful," Gray warned after he'd accidentally sent a few skittering across the floor.

It was all Rory could do to prevent whole-body shivering tremors from overcoming him completely. Putting one foot in front of the other was all he felt capable of.

They'd gone several dozen feet when a voice behind him made everything in Rory freeze.

"I knew I would find you here," a melodious voice exulted. Light shone behind them, and Rory knew what he'd see the moment he turned to face her. Had Evrard known she would appear? If he had, why hadn't he warned them? But of course, what could you possibly bring to fight a cold-hearted, manipulative sorceress?

Rory hesitated, but Gray turned immediately.

"And I you," Gray responded tartly. "You've gotten predictable in your old age."

Rory turned to see the shimmering form of his aunt, golden and perfect, toss her dark hair and smile mysteriously. "Old age? I think not. But you will not live to see it. Or you, my sweet, naive nephew."

"Sweet, but not as naive as you might think," Rory insisted, forcing his teeth not to chatter as he answered her.

She held out her hand. "I assume you are here to fetch this." A shining silver ring shone on her palm. "Truth is so overrated."

"You're wrong," Rory insisted.

Gray fell back into a fighting stance, pulling his dagger from its sheath at his calf. "We will be taking that with us," he answered, his voice cold and deadly.

She laughed, as beautifully as she always had, but now Rory heard a darker, uglier edge to it. Like she was laughing at them, but never with them.

I will make different choices. I have made different choices. I'm not the naive boy you watched ride out of Beaulieu.

Gray was partly responsible for that, but so was the world he'd encountered outside of his tower library's walls.

"I always think the old standards work as well as the flashy tricks," Sabrina said, and to Rory's horror, she closed her fingers tight on the ring, and then began to morph, her human form falling away to reveal the thing that Gray had once admitted to fighting before.

A chimera, that's what she was. Snarling lion head and big bulky body, with the tail of a serpent hissing and spitting as it flicked around her mane.

"A good thing I've had many years to consider how I would have killed you," Gray said roughly and re-gripped his dagger.

Rory knew it had to be bravado talking, because evading a chimera once was luck; they could not hope to defeat it with two small daggers and no other weapons.

She must have known it too, because she roared, crowing her triumph before she'd even achieved it, and it echoed through the cave and must have leaked through the wall of mist. Evrard would have heard it, Rory thought despondently, and he would know they were about to be defeated, if they were not defeated already.

But Gray did not flinch even for a moment, and then, suddenly, the dagger was flying through the air, light flashing along the deadly sharp edge, and landing right in the meat of the creature's broad chest.

Rory's breath caught and he hoped that Gray's impeccably true aim would be enough to defeat her, but the chimera only laughed, the human sound from its lion's jaws eerie and terrible.

The dagger fell from its chest, like it had never even hit her, and Gray gasped, disbelieving.

Rory froze, unsure of what he should do. He could never throw his dagger, not nearly as well as Gray could, and even that, with such perfect aim, had not managed to harm her.

Still, as the chimera began to prowl closer, and Gray still seemed stuck in place, disbelieving that such a flawlessly aimed blow hadn't killed the chimera.

Pulling out his own dagger, Rory stepped in front of Gray and pointed directly at the creature's growling snout. He might be terrified, nearly shaking inside with fear, but he wasn't going to let her touch Gray, not when he'd sacrificed everything he held dear to make sure they made it this far. It wasn't Gray's responsibility to kill his aunt, it was Rory's. She was his flesh and blood, and she had betrayed not only their family, she had betrayed their kingdom.

In the dim light of the cave, Rory's dagger shone less silver, and more bronze. He'd never noticed the particular hue of the blade before, and he wondered, as he tried to hold his ground, what material it was made of, and where Marthe had found it.

"You already know that will not stop me," she announced, her voice rising with exultation. "Finally I will have your blood, and even time will bow to me."

"You will never have his blood," Rory insisted. It was one thing for her to claim dominion over him, but to kill Gray? To hunt him so mercilessly he was forced to escape at a young age and remain in hiding all these years? Anger rose in Rory. How dare she? He swung out and the blow was not particularly skilled or even well-placed, as it only swiped across a single heavily furred leg. It was the kind of blow that likely wouldn't have stopped a human man, never mind a magical creature hell-bent on destroying both of them.

But for some reason the blow didn't glance off the skin, but sank in, bright red blood welling at the cut. She stumbled, clearly surprised, and then glanced down at the blade in Rory's hand.

Her shriek was deafening, and Rory realized very quickly that there was something special about this blade. Something that could actually reach her and could actually cut her. He lunged again and sliced her again, her shrieking tripling in volume.

"Keep going," Gray urged him, "it's hurting her."

But Rory had no intention of stopping now. The serpent kept dodging in and out of the space between them, threatening with its wide, needle-fanged jaws, but then Rory got a particularly lucky blow in and it screeched along with the lion's head as Rory partially cut through its long, sinuous neck.

When Rory had landed five strikes against it, blood gleaming on its fur, on its scales, the chimera took a step back, and then another. And then Gray shouldered him to the side, grabbed Rory's dagger, and right before he stepped up to land a killing blow, the creature disappeared completely, a singed scent to the air as the sound of metal against stone rang through the air.

Rory fell to his knees and with shaking fingers reached for the shining silver ring. He finally closed his hand over it and stood, holding it out to Gray with wonder in his eyes.

"We got it," he said, voice trembling. "We got it."