Rowan POV
The drive took three hours and Rowan spent all of it wondering if he'd made a mistake.
Not about leaving the museum. That was necessary. But about the way he'd looked at her when she told him to leave. About the moment when he'd wanted to stay. About the pull in his chest that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with the woman whose eyes held secrets that matched his own.
He gripped the steering wheel and pushed the thoughts away.
The coordinates were burned into his brain. Kael had given them to him weeks ago along with old records and fragments of prophecies. The Last City of Living Magic sleeps in the place where no compasses work and no maps point. Where the forest remembers magic and guards it like a living thing.
The forest that was supposed to be north of the city. Hidden. Protected. Waiting.
Rowan turned off the main highway and onto a smaller road. Then smaller. Until finally there was no road at all, just a dirt path that seemed to disappear into wilderness. Trees closed in on both sides like they were swallowing the world whole.
He parked the car and got out.
The air hit him first. Not cold. Not warm. Something else entirely. Like electricity before a storm. Like the moment right before lightning strikes. His skin prickled in response and when he looked down at his forearms, they were glowing faintly. Gold light beneath his skin like his blood had turned into starlight.
This was it. This was the place.
Rowan moved into the trees and everything changed.
The forest shouldn't have been alive like this. Trees shouldn't move when there was no wind. Branches shouldn't reach down like they were trying to touch his hair. The ground shouldn't feel warm beneath his feet like it was breathing. But it was all happening and Rowan's body was thrumming in response, lighting up like a beacon, answering the call that had been buried inside him since birth.
He walked deeper into the trees and found himself moving through a landscape that didn't make sense. Rocks carved with symbols that matched the Prague mirror from the museum. Moss that glowed faintly in colors that didn't exist in the normal world. Streams that flowed upward instead of down, water defying gravity like it was following some ancient law Rowan didn't understand.
The glow in his skin was getting brighter. His chest was burning. His heartbeat was synchronizing with something that lived underneath the earth, something old and patient and impossibly powerful.
The Council had been right. The city was real. And it was calling to him specifically.
He found the place where reality bent about two hours into the forest.
At first it was just a shimmer in the air, like heat coming off pavement. But as he walked closer, the shimmer became more solid. More present. Like an invisible wall was separating two different worlds. On one side was the forest as it should be. Normal. Ordinary. Dead.
On the other side was something else entirely.
Rowan stepped toward the shimmer and felt it resist. Not like a wall. Like a living thing. Like the magic was testing him, deciding whether he was allowed to pass. His skin was fully glowing now, bright enough to cast shadows in the darkening forest. The marks on his body that he'd always thought were just birthmarks were lighting up with symbols he'd never understood.
The shimmer recognized him.
It parted like water and Rowan saw it. The entrance. Ancient stone carved with patterns that made his eyes hurt to look at. Living light emanating from behind the stone like something inside was waking up. A doorway. A threshold. The seal that Kael had sent him to break.
He reached out and touched the stone.
The contact was electric. Painful. Beautiful. Every nerve in his body screamed and sang and woke up all at once. His blood was fire and starlight. His bones were vibrating at a frequency that shouldn't exist. And underneath it all, he felt something else.
Someone else.
A presence so powerful and ancient and aware that it made him fall to his knees. The city's magic. Conscious. Watching. Waiting for him.
Rowan pulled his hand back, breathing hard. His skin was still glowing. His heart was still racing. But something had shifted inside him. Something had changed.
He understood now what he was supposed to do.
The Council hadn't just given him a mission. They'd made him a tool. A key. A being specifically designed to unlock this seal and release what was sleeping behind it. His entire life had been leading to this moment. Every choice. Every decision. Every year of training and hunting and learning to sense magic had been preparing him for exactly this.
He was supposed to break the seal.
And somehow he knew there was a woman on the other side of it. The curator with the dark eyes and the silver-threaded braids. The one whose magic had screamed in recognition of his. She was connected to this place. Connected to the city. Connected to whatever was about to happen when he opened this door.
Rowan sat back on his heels and tried to breathe.
He could do this. He could reach into the earth and feel the seal's structure and find the weak point and shatter it into pieces. He had the power. He had the ability. All he had to do was use it.
But when he did, everything would change. The woman in the museum would hate him. The city would wake up. The Council would get what they wanted. The world would shift on its axis and nothing would ever be the same again.
He sat in the dirt with his glowing skin and his burning chest and his heart screaming at him to run. To leave. To forget the coordinates and the mission and the pull inside his body that had been driving him forward his entire life.
But the night was falling and Kael expected results and Rowan had learned a long time ago that disappointing Kael was dangerous.
He stood up.
His hands were steady when he pulled out the device that Kael had given him weeks ago. Black metal. Humming with power that made his skin crawl. A key. A breaker. A tool designed to do only one thing.
He looked at the device. Looked at the seal. Looked back at the forest that was watching him with breath held in its branches.
Tomorrow he would come back and do this. Tomorrow he would break the seal and release whatever was sleeping in the Last City. Tomorrow he would destroy the woman's carefully hidden world and everything she was protecting.
But tonight he could still pretend that none of this was happening. That he had another choice. That he wasn't already committed to destroying her.
Rowan pulled the device close and felt it hum against his chest.
"Time to open the door," he whispered.
And somewhere in the distance, the city's magic woke up a little bit more. Screaming in anticipation.