by S. M. Reine
They reached the top of the temple. Summer didn’t immediately join him on the walkway. She hung back on the stairs, chewing on the inside of her mouth. “If you’re going where I think you’re going…”
The room with the lock for Eden—the old Eden, not New Eden—was down that hallway.
“You don’t have to come,” he said, turning his back on her. He could find it on his own.
He ran his hands over another mural, this one much better preserved than the one on the outside of the building. It depicted some kind of female angel with soft brown hair and a sad smile in a lush garden, very much like the one Abram had been dreaming about.
Summer fidgeted beside him, twisting her hands.
“We should go back home,” she said.
Home? Northgate wasn’t home. The sanctuary wasn’t home.
Abram’s fingers brushed a crack in the wall. He dug his fingers in and hauled the door open, revealing a short hallway and a round room on the other side.
He stepped through.
There was a statue of a woman at the center of the room. It was the same angel from the mural, her arms open as if inviting him to embrace her.
The elements of the ritual that Summer had described were still intact. There was a large rug that had been woven by James Faulkner to use as a circle of power and an altar smeared with dried blood. This was where both Abel and Summer had tried—and failed—to open the lock.
Because the mural had been closed, the Union hadn’t broken in to mess with James’s ritual. Everything was still in place.
It didn’t look like much. After everything that Summer had said about that catastrophic day, Abram had expected a lot more out of one of Eden’s locks.
He picked up a ritual knife with an elaborate hilt and a shining steel blade.
“Abram,” Summer said with more urgency.
He clenched his fist around the cutting edge and felt it bite into his flesh.
Blood dripped down the heel of his palm, off his wrist, and onto the feet of the statue. Just a few drops. Drip, drip, drip.
A humming filled the air, and the statue began to move. Her hands turned toward each other, lifting toward her breast. She assumed a prayer position, head bowed, eyes closed.
Energy crackled above her, filling the room with brilliant white light. Abram flung up an arm to shield his eyes.
As he watched, the energy widened into a circle, allowing him to see the garden he had been dreaming of, filled with emerald green trees and a brilliant blue sky.
His blood had opened another one of the locks to Eden.
Dear reader,
Thanks for joining me for yet another story. Book six, Torn by Fury, will be available in summer 2014. If you’d like to know when it comes out, visit my website to sign up for my new release email alerts.
I hope you’ll also leave a review with your thoughts on the site where you bought Lost in Prophecy—it helps other readers find the series, and your feedback means the world to me!
Happy reading!
Sara (SM Reine)
http://authorsmreine.com/
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