I rushed through the door and hurdled the entire flight of steps, landing at the bottom with a jolt. I ran to the third cell on the right, surprised to see the heavy wooden door wide open. But metal bars still kept me out. Tristan stood on the other side, his hands pressing at the space between the bars, but unable to go through it. Something blocked him from reaching out. I leaned against the bars and pushed my own arms through the openings—nothing stopped me from going in.
“Tristan,” I half-breathed, half-cried as I caressed his beautiful, but tired looking face.
“Ma lykita,” he said, his voice full of relief. “You’re okay.”
“We have to get you out of here.”
He shook his head. “Magic blocks me from even passing my hands through, so I can’t use my powers. But it’s fine. We’ll deal with this their way.”
“But their way is wrong. They’re all screwed up. You know what will happen.”
“I do.” His jaw tightened, making the muscle jump. “But there’s a reason for it all, my love. Whatever happens, it’s meant to be.”
“Not if they’re doing it on their own or . . . with the wrong influence.”
“There’s nothing we can do, Lex. We have to trust them. In the end, they’ll do what’s right.”
Trust them? Ha! “You mean trust them to split us up? Because you know that’s what they’ll do. They want to get rid of you. This is all the traitor’s doing, Tristan. There’s nothing right about it.”
“Lexi,” he said, his voice lower yet still firm. He took my hands in his and pulled them to his soft lips. “Lexi, my love, none of it matters. We have to remain loyal. We have to do what’s best for the Amadis. This is the best—”
“What? Separating us is not what’s best. It’s the absolute worst! I can’t do that again, Tristan.”
He pursed his lips together. “If it comes to that, you have to, Lex. It’s your responsibility and if you do it—and you are strong enough—you can bring the Amadis back together. You have to live your duty and your purpose. Even if it means without me.” He paused for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice came out bleaker than I’d ever heard it before. “What we have . . .” He stopped again and swallowed hard. “What we have, Alexis . . . it’s not real.”
My eyes bugged with incredulity. Had the crazies overtaken him, too? “What the hell are you talking about? How can you say that?”
“Listen to me,” he said. His eyes looked deeply into mine, his dark with no gold flecks, the green a murky swirl of pain and turmoil. “I need to tell you something. As soon as Lisa mentioned the stone, I remembered it all. I said I didn’t because I didn’t want to believe what it meant, and your knowing would only make things worse. I thought . . .” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. What I wanted. It’s obviously true.”
“What?” His defeated tone frightened me. How bad could it be?
“The stone, Lex, in the pendant. You and me—it only happened because of it. It’s always been the stone. It had been given to me as a young child.” His vision of a beautiful, golden-haired and golden-eyed woman showed in my mind, standing before us. From the perspective, I guessed Tristan to be very small. The golden woman held the triangular stone in her hand and pressed it against his chest until it sank below his skin and disappeared. “She told me I would know when the right one came—my true love—the stone would tell me. I was to remove the stone and give it to this person, my soul mate. Only her, the woman stressed. Anyone else would be dangerous, perhaps fatal. But my soul mate would love me forever. For hundreds of years, the right one never came along. Not until I met you. Only then did the stone warm, whenever I was with you.”
I saw the vision of him taking a scalpel to the skin over his heart, reaching in and removing the stone, then creating the pendant for me.
“Ooo-kaaay,” I said, trying not to be creeped out with where the stone came from. “You gave it to me. I am your soul mate. I do love you forever.”