Page 34 of Shared By the Werebears
Ronan hesitated for a moment…then he lay down behind her, pressing his chest to her back.
He didn’t say anything but he stayed…he joined us.
That was enough for now.
20
GOLDIE
We were almost out of the woods. Literally. Somehow the trip back from the Blighted Forest hadn’t taken nearly as long as the trip to reach it.
The branches and trees around us were thinning. We were nearly home—nearly safe. I could see the softly glowing lights of Hidden Hollow just up ahead and the faint shimmer of the magic bubble that surrounds it.
My heart was full and aching with everything we’d just been through in the Blighted Forest. Finn and Ronan and I had grown closer and now I knew that Finn would stay with me, no matter what. Ronan, I wasn’t so sure about. But at any rate, Locasta had granted us the bitter berries, so we had a chance now to break the curse. A sliver of hope.
But hope, it turns out, is a slippery thing.
Because one second I was walking and the next the forest floor crumbled under my feet and I tumbled downward, moss and roots ripping away from the earth as it gave out under me. I slipped down what felt like a moss-covered slide, a shriek ripping from my throat as I went.
“Goldie! Goldie!” I heard both my guys shouting.
I landed hard but not painfully, breath whooshing from my lungs as I hit something soft—like an overgrown velvet footstool. It was a moss-covered outcropping—hard enough to stop my momentum but soft enough that it didn’t hurt me. I lay there panting for a moment before rolling away.
It was a good thing I got out of the way. A moment later, both Finn and Ronan slid down after me in a blur of panic and brawn, crashing against each other in their hurry to get to me.
“Are you hurt?” Ronan’s hands were already running over my arms and legs, checking for breaks. Finn knelt beside me, cupping my face, eyes wide with concern.
“Are you okay, baby?” he murmured.
“I’m okay,” I gasped, still catching my breath. “But… look.”
We had fallen into an underground cavern—no, not a cavern. Asanctum.
Smooth stone walls glittered faintly with veins of crystal. Strange vines, silver and humming, crawled across their surfaces like living script. In the center of the chamber stood a raised pedestal carved from milky white moonstone. Resting atop its broad surface were five objects, each glowing with the faint sheen of magic.
“What is this place?” Ronan growled, looking around. “I don’t trust it.”
“You don’t trust anyone or anything,” Finn pointed out. He frowned. “But in this case, I agree with you. There’s something weird going on here.”
“There definitely is—something weird andmagical,” I told them. “Look.”
I pointed at the back wall, behind the large moonstone pedestal. There were silver, glowing letters there, written in some script I couldn’t read.
“What does it say?” Ronan asked, frowning.
“Some form of Elvish, maybe.” Finn shrugged. “I don’t know—I can’t read it.”
I was about to say that I couldn’t read it either…and then the writing on the wall shifted.
The crystal wall behind the pedestal shimmered and rippled like water, forming words that glowed golden-bright.
“One gift to take where shadows dwell,
Each holds a truth too deep to tell.
Choose with touch and not just sight?—
For some bring bliss, and some bring blight.”
