Dorian tilted his head so his cheek rested against Jasper’s. When he spoke, his breath ruffled the fine feathers on the side of Jasper’s head. “Anyone who means you harm is going to have to go through me. I’ve already lost Caius. I won’t lose you, too.”
A lump formed in Jasper’s throat and he struggled to swallow. He buried his face in the crook of Dorian’s neck so he could pretend, for just a little while longer, that they were anywhere else. That it was just the two of them. That they had all the time and comfort in the world to explore this fragile thing growing between them. Jasper had never been good at relationships. Echo had been his only real friend—and even then, they had barely trusted each other with anything of any great significance until she had burst into his home carting a half-dead Dorian. Relationships were an entirely different category of incomprehensibility as far as Jasper was concerned. But somehow, despite the overwhelming odds, he had managed not to mess this up. Yet. Dorian wanted him alive. Dorian wanted him safe.
Dorian wanted him.
Jasper splayed his hands across Dorian’s back. The sodden shirt clung to Dorian like a second skin, but he seemed unbothered by the wetness or the cold, as if they were inconveniences so minor they barely warranted notice. Jasper pulled away, still in the circle of Dorian’s arm, just enough to meet that perfect blue eye. Dorian’s pupil was dilated in the dim light—where the light came from Jasper hadn’t a clue, and he was willing to chalk it up to magic, because why the hell not.
It would have been the perfect moment for a kiss. Another one. Slower. Less frantic. Not fueled by a daring escape from the claws of death. Jasper brought one hand up to trace the filigree of scarring on Dorian’s left cheek. Dorian flushed.
Echo chose that moment to clear her throat, reminding them of her presence.
Dorian blinked and pulled away just enough to shoot her a look.
“This is a really beautiful moment,” Echo said, “and I’m honored to be a part of it—”
“You’re not,” Jasper interjected.
“—however, we have work to do.”
She was right. As much as Jasper wished she weren’t.
Echo stepped away from the door she had been studying and gestured for Dorian to approach. This one was carved out of blood-red marble shot through with veins of gold. A rune was carved into the center in the same ancient script as the one they had encountered earlier.
“What does this one mean?” Echo asked.
Dorian stepped away from Jasper’s embrace, and Jasper didn’t think he was imagining the reluctance as the Drakharin put a modest distance between them. Dorian approached the door and canted his head to the side as he considered the rune. His hand hovered over the elegantly wrought lines.
“I’ve never seen it before,” Dorian said. “It’s most likely a dialect that died along with the people who worshiped at and tended this temple.”
“Well, what’s your best guess? I’m assuming it’ll open the door the same way the other one did, but I’m getting cautious in my old age,” said Echo. Jasper doubted that very much. “I’d like to know what we’re walking into before we walk into it.”
Dorian traced the curves and lines of the rune in the air with a finger, his features arranged in a scowl that shouldn’t have been at all attractive but was. You’ve got it bad, Jasper thought.
“This part here”—Dorian indicated the left half of the rune, made up of two downward strokes bisected with an undulating line—“is similar to the symbol for ‘fire.’ Or maybe ‘smoke.’ Or ‘eating utensil,’ but I don’t think it’s that one.”
“If there’s something that wants to eat us behind that door, I swear to the gods, I will set this whole place ablaze,” said Jasper.
Dorian continued, ignoring Jasper’s threat. “And this part looks like the runic symbol for ‘cat.’?” His eye narrowed as he thought. “Or perhaps ‘bird.’?”
With a determined sigh, Echo tightened her ponytail. “Great. Well, at least we have some idea what to expect—a pyromaniac cat-bird.”
“I’m fairly certain it’s a reference to fire,” Dorian muttered.
“If Caius is behind these doors,” Echo continued, “then I don’t want to keep him waiting.” She gestured to the rune. “Dorian, if you would be so kind?”
Dorian offered Jasper a sympathetic look. “Are you sure you’re all right to proceed?”
Jasper might have appreciated the comfort Dorian had offered him moments ago, but he drew the line at coddling. “Right as rain. The sooner we get out of here, the better.”
That earned a nod from Dorian and an “Amen” from Echo. Dorian raised his hand and moved it toward the center of the rune. Squaring his shoulders, he visibly gathered himself to face the next obstacle thrown in their path. They were so close to Caius, but one wrong move, one miscalculation, one error in judgment or fate, and their journey would come to an abrupt end. And now they were facing the one thing that made the loudest vessel in Echo’s consciousness—Rose—quiver with fear and panic.
“Wait,” Echo blurted.
Dorian’s hand froze in midmotion, fingers inches from the smooth red stone. He angled his head so he could study Echo with his one eye. “Are you all right?”
Fire.
“Yes,” Echo lied.
A single silver eyebrow raised, calling her bluff. Dorian didn’t need words to communicate; his face said everything. He was probably terrible at poker.
“No,” Echo admitted. “I’m not all right.”
—
She looked back at the rune. Unlike the previous runes, all the lines of this symbol were angular and sharp—just like the harsh sound of Drakhar consonants.
Fire.
The word was laden with memory. It was fitting that their final—or so Echo hoped—obstacle was the element that plagued firebirds, past and present. Those jagged lines summoned images seared into Echo’s brain: the crumbling white ash of burnt bark in the Black Forest; the golden flare of Tanith’s power, setting the Oracle’s sanctuary ablaze; the crackling timber of Rose’s cottage after Tanith had ignited it. Echo took a deep breath. What she smelled was not the cool, earthy scent of the cavern beneath the temple, but smoke and ash. Ghosts of a life snuffed out in a fit of righteous anger.
“Whatever’s behind that door…,” Echo began. She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t want to admit her weakness out loud. As irrational as she knew it was, she couldn’t help but feel that voicing it would make it worse somehow.
“You can handle it,” Jasper said. “I know you can.”
“Not entirely sure I share your confidence,” Echo said, “but I appreciate the sentiment.”
Dorian had not lowered his hand, but he did draw back slightly. “Caius told me what happened,” he said. “To Rose.”
Echo shot him a puzzled look. “You didn’t know?”
Dorian shook his head. “He didn’t tell me when it happened. We weren’t that close back then. I had only just joined the guard, and we were friends, but…”