At once the humming of approval began again, and the great columns of both stalagmites and stalactites banded with colors of white and yellow and bright red.
Luiz stood silent, very still, much as Gary had before him, and just as Gary had, Luiz nodded his head several times as though listening. He looked up at Zacarias and Manolito and smiled for the first time.
“It is done,” Mikhail murmured in a low, carrying tone of power that seemed to fill the chamber. “So be it.”
Zev’s mouth went dry. His heart began to pound. He felt tension gather low in his belly, great knots forming that he couldn’t prevent. There was acceptance here—but there could also be rejection. He wasn’t born Carpathian, but Fen and Dimitri were offering him so much more than that—they stood for him. Called him brother. If these ancient warriors accepted him, he would be truly both Carpathian and Lycan. He would have a pack of his own again. He would belong somewhere.
The feeling in the great chamber was very somber. The eloquence of the long dead slowly faded and he knew it was time. He had no idea what he would do when asked. None. He wasn’t even certain his legs would carry him the distance, and he wasn’t going to be carried to the bloodstone.
“Is it your wish, Zev, to become fully a brother?” Mikhail asked.
He felt the weight of every stare. Warriors all. Good men who knew battle. Men he respected. His feet wanted to move forward. He wanted to be a part of them. He was physically still very weak. What if he didn’t measure up in their eyes?
You aren’t weak, Zev. There is nothing weak about you.
Her voice moved through him like a breath of fresh air. He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until she spoke so intimately to him. He let it go, braced himself and made his first move. Fen and Dimitri stayed close, not just to walk him to the bloodstone, but to make absolutely certain he didn’t fall on his face. Still, he was determined it wouldn’t happen.
With every step he took on that worn, stone floor he seemed to absorb into him the ancients who had gone before. Their wisdom. Their technique in battle. Their great determination and sense of honor and duty. He felt information gathering in his mind, yet he couldn’t quite process it. It was a great gift, but he couldn’t access the data and that left him even more concerned that he might be rejected. Somewhere, sometime, long ago, he felt he’d been in this sacred chamber before. The longer he was in it, the more familiar to him it felt.
As he approached the crystal column, his heart accelerated even more. He felt sheer raw power emanating from the bloodstone. The formation pulsed with power, and each time it did, color banded, ropes of various shades of red, blood he knew was collected from all the great warriors who were long gone from the Carpathian world, yet, through the prince, could still aid their people. Mikhail understood their voices through those perfectly pitched notes.
Fen dropped his palm over the tip of the stalagmite. His blood ran down the sacred stone. The colors changed instantly, swirling with a deep purple through dark red. He stepped back to allow Zev to approach the column.
Zev wasn’t going to draw it out. Either they accepted him or they didn’t. In his life, he couldn’t remember a single time when he cared what others thought of him, but here, in the sacred chamber of warriors, he found it mattered much more than he wanted to admit. He dropped his palm over the sharp tip so that it pierced his palm and blood flowed over Fen’s, mingling with that of the one who would be his brother, and that of the great warriors of the past.
His soul stretched to meet those who had gone before. He was surrounded, filled with camaraderie, with acceptance, with belonging. His community dated back to ancient times, and those warriors of old called out to him in greeting. As they did, the flood of information through his brain, adhering to his memories, was both astonishing and overwhelming.
Zev was a man who observed every detail of his surroundings. It was one of the characteristics that had allowed him to become an elite hunter. Now, everything seemed even sharper and more vivid to him. Every warrior’s heart in the chamber from ancient to modern times matched the drumming of the earth’s heart. Blood ebbed and flowed in their veins, matching the flow of the ancients’ blood within the crystal, but also the ebb and flow of water throughout their earth.
Dimitri dropped his palm over the crystal and at once, Zev felt the mingling of their blood, the kinship that ran deeper than friendship. His history and their history became one, stretching back to ancient times. Information was accumulative, amassing in his mind at a rapid rate. With it came the heavy responsibility of his kind.