Chapter 15

After a half hour of hiking, Ursula reached the ridge’s peak, completely winded, her legs aching. But she’d been right about the view—she could see clear down the side of the mountain, along its gentle slope that led to the apple blossom forests, and on to the mist-shrouded castle. A black column of smoke rose from the turrets. The dragon was wreaking some serious damage, and she needed to put a stop to it.

Above her was the great ring of basalt that marked the rim of the Tor. Sunlight glinted off dark, volcanic rock—pumice and obsidian. Okay, so it’s not just a hill. It’s a bloody volcano.

If there was ever a good time to have her fire magic, it would be now, but she’d have to do without it.

She’d been hikingfor at least an hour when she came upon the trail that wound between the rocks—a narrow path barely more than a game trail. She would have mistaken it for exactly that had there not been a pile of stones twenty meters up the mountainside. A cairn—a landmark of rocks. Mountain goats didn’t build cairns.

Moving as swiftly as she could, she hiked up the treeless trail, bathed in sunlight. Here, a few forlorn tufts of grass grew from the gravel and scree. She was probably imagining it, but she had the sense that the grass seemed to bend away from her as she walked, as if she terrified even the plants. Could they sense her Darkling powers? Up here, a cold wind whipped over her skin, and the temperature dropped, but the hiking kept her warm. A bead of sweat trickled down her forehead. She squinted in the sunlight, looking out for the next cairn when she felt a familiar prickle up her spine. Someone was watching her.

Up here, she had nowhere to hide. She was totally exposed on the mountainside. Why couldn’t Niniane have grabbed a blade? Even a kitchen knife would have been better than nothing.

Footfalls crunched over the gravel path. Ursula whirled, ready to fight with her hands if she had to. And there was Bael, the sunlight gilding his powerful body. She took in his beauty—the perfect sweep of dark hair, the golden skin and gray eyes, the combination of colors like sunlight piercing storm clouds. Finally, he’d found clothes that fit him—black, as usual, with short sleeves that showed off his thickly corded arms, inked with vicious tattoos. A sword hung from his hip, and he carried a jacket under one arm.

She put her hands on her hips. “Fancy meeting you here. Were you looking for me?”

Bael shook his head. “You shouldn’t be up here.”

“And yet I am.” She wasn’t about to tell him about the Darkling prophecy. She’d already seen how he reacted to the fact that she was from Mount Acidale, and she didn’t need to make matters worse.

He stopped a few feet in front of her, and she breathed in his seductive sandalwood scent. “Why are you here, Ursula?”

“I’m after the sword, obviously. You said it was the only thing that can kill the dragons.” Ursula eyed him suspiciously. What is he doing up here on the mountain? “I thought you were in the infirmary.”

“I was. They stitched me up, and when the dragons attacked, I started searching for the sword.”

“What about your wings?”

“They put Vesalius Ointment in the wounds before they closed them. They won’t fully heal, but they no longer require magic to keep me from bleeding to death.”

“You still don’t have your shadow magic?”

Bael shook his head. “The queen and the maidens hid the apples.”

Ursula studied him closely. If he was after the sword, too, maybe he was the Darkling. After all, he was the one with dark, shadow magic—not her. Perhaps her betrothal to him had been enough to set off Merlin’s and the queen’s senses.

“Isn’t the sword supposed to be nearly impossible to pull from the rock?”

Bael shrugged. “I’ve done many things that are supposed to be impossible.” There was something about Bael’s casualness that almost seemed feigned. What wasn’t he telling her?

“We’ll find it together, then.”

They walked in silence along the path, toward a towering wall of basalt. It was awe-inspiring—extending at least a thousand feet in the air, and perfectly sheer. She didn’t think she’d be able to climb it without her hellhound strength.

At the wall’s base, the fields of scree transformed into boulders, splintered and chipped. Stopping by Bael’s side, Ursula glanced up at the cliff nervously. At some point, the boulders had been ejected from the volcano’s mouth. Ursula stared up at the sheer, gleaming, gray rock face. It didn’t exactly look easy to climb.

As she surveyed the rock, a carved inscription caught her eye. Written in Angelic was the phrase, A Knight bears a token of the Lady’s Favor. Next to the inscription, a shape had been carved into the rock—an arch, like a door.

Already, Bael was inspecting it, running his fingers over the carving. “This is the entrance.”

“What does the text mean?”

“There are supposed to be a series of challenges to get to the Lady of the Lake. I suppose this is our first one.”

Ursula walked up to the cliff, her shoulder brushing against Bael’s forearm. At the brief contact of his skin against hers, a wave of heat surged through her, and she forced herself to focus on the rock. Like Bael, she brushed her fingers against the stone, finding the gray basalt cold and a little rough. The groove in the rock was maybe as deep as her fingertip. It didn’t seem to extend into the rock any farther. “It feels solid.”

Bael frowned. “I don’t sense any magic.”

“You can normally feel it?”

“Yes. Move away.”

As Ursula retreated, Bael took a step back, then charged at the stone with a lowered shoulder. A crack echoed through the air, and Bael stepped back, rubbing his deltoid.

“A noble effort,” said Ursula. “But I imagine we need to do what the inscription says. A token of some kind. What’s a Lady’s Favor?”

Bael scrubbed a hand over his chin. “Ladies used to give knights little trinkets to show their support. Hairpins, handkerchiefs.” He glanced at her, and for the briefest of moments, his eyes slid down her body. “A bit of bodice lace if you were lucky.”

“Bodice lace?” At the look Bael had given her, Ursula suddenly felt very aware of just how much flesh she was exposing in her tiny dress.

“A piece of cloth torn from the neck of her dress.” His gaze flicked to her dress again. “Where did you get that dress?”

When he met her gaze again, his eyes half-entranced her. A pure gray, with faint flecks of blue, framed by black. There was always something so sad in his expression, and right now, she had the strongest urge to reach up and stroke the beautiful planes of his face—but they were here for a reason. “From one of the girls. It doesn’t quite fit, I know.”

A spark of heat flashed in his eyes as he stared down at her. “It looks perfect on you.”

“Right,” said Ursula, not trying to hide her skepticism. “So we need a favor for the Lady to open the door? What should I give her? Do you want to help me tear off a bit of my bodice?”

For just a moment, a wicked smile curled Bael’s lips—and then, so fast she wondered if it had been there at all, it disappeared again, replaced by his usual stony expression. “Whether I do or not, your bodice won’t help us. The inscription says a token of the Lady. We need a token from the Lady of the Lake. Not for her.”

“Right. But that makes no sense. We need a token from her in order to get access to her.” She bit her lip. “Maybe it’s a metaphor.” Then, the answer struck her like a bolt of lightning. “Do you have Mordred’s pendant?”

Bael’s eyes widened with understanding, and he pulled the golden apple from his pocket. Sunlight glinted off it, nearly blinding Ursula, and immediately the surface of the rock began to move. A pale light raced along the deep, rocky groove. Then a loud bang echoed through the air, like the report of a gun. Slowly, the stone swung open.