Page 8 of Tortured

That’s Eirwen Mountain, Seren says.

I spot a man on a snowy ledge. Is that Ieuan? His hair is white and hangs long behind him. His clothes are green though, so he’s like a spring flower poking out of the snow.

Yes. We’re here. Seren lands right in front of Ieuan, who stands between two hulking boulders twenty feet apart and nearly as tall.

I slide to the ground and drop into a crouch. My feet immediately start to melt the snow around me. Seren curls her wings to her back and relaxes.

Ieuan steps forward as I stand. Contrary to what his white hair might indicate, he’s young, about my age, early twenties. He’s probably older. Emrys are ageless once they hit maturity. Will I have this attribute with Niawen’s light inside me? Only time will tell. A turquoise dragon stone hangs around his neck.

So he is a dragon rider—a guardian.

“Prince Kenrik,” Ieuan says. “Seren has told me about your predicament. I help only because I’m ashamed of meeting Niawen on this ledge and forbidding her entrance. It is not something I can ever undo.”

The fateful day that Niawen was exiled. She told me briefly of it before we separated.

I take Ieuan’s outstretched arm and shake it. “Niawen would understand. She would bear no malice.”

“That is my hope.” He pauses while taking me in.

Is he analyzing my light? How does my light appear to him? Niawen once told me how emrys could discern light, how their internal lights look like stars in the sky when they use their inner sight to gaze over a vast distance. And when looking at a person individually, an emrys can see a person’s light as an orb in their chest, with its own distinct color.

But my light has become something else entirely.

I have no orb.

Ieuan finishes his assessment of me but doesn’t comment. “When you pass through the portal, there will be no time to marvel. You must move swiftly to the High Emrys’s palace.”

I look at Seren. “Does she know I’m coming?”

“Supposedly, she does not,” Seren says. “But she is gifted with clairvoyance.”

Ieuan smiles. “So most likely she does.”

“So if she doesn’t want me in Gorlassar,” I say, “she would have probably intervened already.”

“Not necessarily,” Ieuan says. “The High Emrys cannot interfere with events. She must allow them to unfold.”

I squint at Seren.

“She cannot interfere with agency,” she says. “It’s an eternal law. She’ll allow you to act as you see fit.”

“Well, that’s somewhat convenient.” I suppose.

Ieuan gestures to the space between the boulders. “Gorlassar awaits. Aneirin is stationed on the other side to escort you.”

I touch Seren, hoping her solid shoulders and warm scales will ground me. I am about to do what no human has ever done. Seren nudges her head forward, telling me to stop hesitating.

“All right.” I wave her away.

I take a step. Ieuan sticks his hand into the space, and it disappears.

Okay. So that is the way. It is open for him.

He pulls his hand out.

I swallow, lift my arms, and step forward. I don’t meet a solid wall. An undulating ripple of air caresses my arms up to my elbows. When I glance at my hands, they are gone.

I smile and shove myself into the void between worlds.

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