Jerome's breath hitched, a low growl rolling in the back of his throat. He reached down, his fingers tangling roughly in the hair at the base of my skull, forcing my head back against the furs.
"You are an impossible creature, Lyssa. Every time I think I've found your limit, you just swallow the poison and ask for more."
"Then stop looking for a limit, honey, and start looking at the board," I whispered, my smirk widening as I looked past him toward the center of the city.
Far in the distance, past the jagged obsidian spires and the neon rivers of magma, the violet light grew concentrated, spiraling down into a massive, pulsing vortex that seemed to swallow the very air around it. The Core.
Even from this distance, I could feel the rhythmic, dying thrum of the soil beneath it—the silent lock waiting for a century-old key.
