Killian, the runes on his body now faded, put his own hands against his head.
The sound grew until Killian thought his head would detonate, and then fell again until it had nearly stopped altogether. It rose once again to the volume where Killian could hardly think and the pain was like an orb bursting inside his head.
The next time the sound fell Killian looked at Evrin.
"It must be stopped," Evrin gasped. "Now that it has activated, it can only be stopped from the other side. The seals must be replaced, but they won't work if the beacon isn't stopped."
Killian turned back to Miro. With a shock he saw that two more people had entered the chamber, but he had eyes only for one of them.
Ella stood side by side with a man from the Hazaran desert, his bearing regal and gold thread in his clothing. The desert man held Ella protectively behind him, and instantly Killian knew that this man loved her.
Ella and Killian's eyes met, and as their gaze touched he felt she was looking inside him. He had never spoken about his life with anyone in the way he had with Ella. No one had ever cared to ask.
Killian wanted Ella to live in a world free from men such as the Primate. Whatever doom was on the other side of the portal, Killian wanted Ella to be safe from it. He knew there was no other option.
The beacon could only be stopped from the other side.
Calmly Killian walked forward. For some reason the intensity of the beacon's call no longer hurt him. He reached the wall around the pool and stepped over it, plunging first one leg, and then the other into the oily black liquid.
Where the essence touched his skin, Killian felt a strange tingling sensation, but nothing else. He walked forward, wading through the essence, towards the oval mirror of shimmering gold that stood twice the height of a man.
Towards the portal.
"No. No!"
Killian heard her somehow, even above the deafening wail of the beacon. He turned and looked at her. Ella gazed back at him, pushing the desert man away as she came forward, crying out as the Hazaran held her back. "No!"
Killian reached the centre of the pool. At the foot of the shimmering portal he could see the seals resting where they had fallen to the stone of the platform.
Killian climbed the stone steps, retrieving the seals, and hanging each on the portal where they had been before, where Evrin would be able to activate them behind him.
Killian turned to Ella again, and he knew she would hear him. "I love you," Killian said.
He was making a journey that would have no return. Without another glance behind him, Killian stepped forward, through the burnt gold of the portal's curtain.
Into the unknown.
70
WHEN Ella saw the glowing stairway in the base of the Sentinel's pedestal, she realised she might already be too late.
The prince grabbed her hand, holding her back when he saw she was about to enter the sunken stairway.
"Please, we need to hurry," she said.
"You do not know what's in there," he said.
A piercing sound came from everywhere at once, and both Ella and Prince Ilathor put their hands to their ears. When the volume ebbed Ella shook the prince's restraining hand away and rushed headlong down the stairs, barely cognizant of her surroundings as she ran down the corridor and started to climb the spiralling stairs at the other end.
It would have taken Killian some time to swim to the Sentinel. Had he made it here in time to keep the relic out of the Primate's hands? Had he met Evrin, and were they now fighting the Primate together?
What would she find at the end of these stairs?
"Slow down!" the prince cried from behind her.
Ella didn't bother to reply. Looking up, she saw blue light above her. Feeling her heart race and her stomach clench with fear and dread, she ran up the last few steps.
Then she was out.
It took Ella a moment to take stock of the scene in front of her. The cavernous chamber curved high above where the Sentinel's shoulders and head must be. She was probably at the level of its waist, and where she stood there was a crescent-shaped gallery with tiered steps facing an expansive pool. Ella instantly knew the liquid was essence.
At the far end of the gallery an old man — Evrin — lay prone in the corner. Nearby stood a tall warrior in the garb of an Akari, staring, as Evrin was, at the pool. Ella realised that not far away from her Miro held an arrow pointed at the Akari, but his eyes were also on the pool.
They were all staring at Killian. Ella could see that the protection of the runes she had drawn on his skin had faded. His body looked bruised and battered.
"It must be stopped," Evrin said, his voice wheezing. "Now that it has activated, it can only be stopped from the other side. The seals must be replaced, but they won't work if the beacon isn't stopped."
Prince Ilathor stepped forward, trying to shield Ella, but she fought him as he tried to hold her back.
Everyone else stared at the relic.