Chapter 307. Foundation

Chapter 307: 307. Foundation

Maisie

Jericho and Quinlan exchanged a look. It was the same kind they had when they were communicating with each other through the convergence bond, and I thought it was rude, gossiping about me right in front of me.

Still, I was grateful when they stopped pushing and Quinlan changed the subject. Though his expression told me we were far from over with this conversation.

Didn’t I know it?

"If the rift can only be opened on Samhain and on the Ridge, why did it open here, during the attack?" he asked and licked his fang out of habit. "You mentioned four conditions had to be met first before the rift opened."

I nodded. "Everything I’ve read, in every dream, it’s consistent. It has to be Samhain," I ticked off my fingers. "Two: It has to be somewhere where the veil between the worlds are thin. Like the Ridge. Three? The ruby. Or the Goddess’s Eye. Four..." I exhaled. "A sacrifice."

I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the possibility that a bond so powerful, it merged souls together for an eternity, transcending even death, was created for the purpose of that sacrifice.

If that was true, then it shook everything the Lycans stood by and lived for. It shook the very meaning of an Erasthai. It took the romance and fantasy of finding and bonding with a life mate, a soul mate and replaced it with the ugliness of death.

Because if it were true, Erasthais were simply chosen to die.

And the Lycans had made tradition out of it, picking their mates that way without understanding the full meaning behind what they were doing. Jericho was right. This was sick on so many levels.

I kept the speculation to myself. There was no need to pull the rug from underneath their feet anymore than I already had tonight.

They were watching me closely, like they knew I was holding off on something and I added swiftly, "Kisten did tell me to stay away from the Ridge and the school on Samhain."

I remembered the dance with him last year and the terror on his face. I remembered how young he sounded when he told Margaret he couldn’t do it.

Perhaps it was why I didn’t hate them for trying to kill me, and why I still worried for them. We were all pawns in a larger scheme.

"Maybe the school is as much sacred ground as the Ridge?" Quinlan mused. "It could tie back to the Ridge and the school being the only safe zones."

Jericho made a face. "That checks out, considering the foundation."

Quinlan and I whipped our heads toward him. "Foundation?"

"You didn’t know?" Jericho asked, and at Quinlan’s blank expression, Jericho smiled smugly, his voice dropping into a deep, purring timbre that sent a shiver down my spine. "It was built on the ruins of an ancient temple dedicated to the moon goddess. It was abandoned for a while. Decades in fact, before Soren’s great-great..." He paused. "Great-grandmother repurposed it into a school."

If it used to be a temple, the tether between the goddess and her people was naturally stronger there. Which made the veil thinner here.

Suddenly it made sense that the Queen didn’t want me anywhere near the competition.

More like she didn’t want me anywhere near that ruby. She had known that would happen.

It confused my mind even further. Had she tried to abduct me to prevent that very disaster from happening?

I couldn’t see the Queen doing anything that wasn’t for her own gain, but that day at the competition, she had called me stupid. She had tried to stop me.

"It still doesn’t explain how the rift opened," Quinlan said. "It wasn’t Samhain. And on the night that you..." He tracked off, his eyes darkening at the word he refused to say. The night I died. "...they got through the rift, however small the tear was. And the ruby wasn’t present, either. Clearly, we’re missing something. And it’s important we figure that out, if we’re going to be able to protect you and keep this from happening again. Or find a permanent solution."

I chewed on my bottom lip. He was right. There was something we were missing here. Maybe I was the wild card here. Or maybe it was the ruby.

You have to destroy it!

I stiffened.

Could it really have been that simple? Simply destroy the ruby? It’d make it impossible to open a rift ever again. There wouldn’t be any more sacrifices. There would be no way in or out through either worlds.

"You have that look on your face," Jericho said. "You’ve figured something out."

I licked my lips. "We could... destroy the ruby."

Quinlan cocked his head. "My spies tell me it’s been flaring and acting up since you took it. The Queen hasn’t been able to touch it and she has it locked up in her vault. There’s no getting in there. Assuming we went with that solution, going off the assumption that works."

But Jericho shook his head. "There has to be a reason why it was never destroyed. They went through the pains of burying and rewriting history to hide the truth, and yet they kept the very key to it hidden in plain sight. If Elara Thorne and her council were desperate enough to do keep this world safe and ensure there wouldn’t ever be a cross over, you don’t think they would’ve destroyed that thing first?"

There was a long pause and Quinlan said, "He has a point."

There had to be a way to know for sure. Maybe I could return to the library for answers. But that could take weeks. It’d be easier if I could summon Gruer and ask for answers.

Knowing him, he’d demand something outrageous for his services. Another memory? More money? At this rate, I was going to bankrupt my husbands.

What the hell did he need all that money for anyway?

Perhaps I could ask someone else. Summoning Soren’s mom’s look alike wasn’t even an option. She put the M in Mad.

If only there was someone more knowledgeable and...

Oh. Oh.

Quinlan laughed. "You have that look on your face again. Watching you think is rather entertaining. Tell us what you got."

I opened my mouth. "I have to talk to him."

"Him?"

"The dragon."

"Absolutely not," they snarled.