Page 194 of The Crown’s Temptation

"Eravic."

"Yes," he said. "Or something close enough that I no longer know the difference."

I was quiet. The water moved. The cold pressed in from every side.

"And you?" I said. "What happens to you when it activates?"

He looked at me then. That look he had, the one that lasted just long enough for me to see what was underneath it before he put it away.

"Something similar," he said quietly. “But my Saren abilities have not yet awakened, so it will likely not be anything near as intense as what you experience.”

"The process is intimate," he said. “It could…reveal feelings below the surface that you didn’t know were there, or that I didn’t know were there.” He paused. “Romantic. Physical. Or as simple as love or hate or harm. There are stories of people losing their minds during the process. Coming in contact with a hate they did not know existed. Or feelings that could work in whatever world the magic was forged in but never in this world, leading to….devastation. Insanity, pain.”

He drew in breath. “The real truth is, I have had feelings for you since the very beginning.” He looked away. “And that has not changed. And I do not know what will happen when we do this part. Or if any part of you feels the same.” He looked at me carefully. “The Arrolyn, once activated, does not care about practicality or pain. Are you prepared for that?"

I looked at him. "Will I remember what happens during the three days?"

He was quiet for a long moment. "I do not know," he said finally. "I have never done this before. I am only going based off what elders and historians and healers have told me on my various journeys.”

I looked at the water. I thought about Colsar on the floor next to the ward. About Kiss crawling into Saurin's ankles. About Ari watching everything with those assessing eyes.

"I have a husband," I said. "I have children. I have a life on the other side of a ward that I am going back to." I paused. "Whatever the Arrolyn does to what I feel, none of that changes."

"I know," he said.

"Do you still want to do it?"

He looked at the water. "What I want is not the relevant question."

"It is to me."

He turned and looked at me directly. "Yes," he said. "I still want to do it."

I began coughing again, spitting bright red blood into the cup on the table without intending to.

“If I do not, the poison may kill me. I may stay stuck here forever. And people I care for may die.”

Eravic took a step toward me. “Is that the real reason, Asharin? Or does some part of you want to know what real power feels like?”

“That part too,” I said quietly.

“You will kill him?” He asked.

“Yes. Or die trying,” I said simply.

We stood there in the cold with everything unsaid sitting in the air between us.

"Three days," I said.

"Three days," he said. “I do not know what happens during those three days. I simply know we go in that hut, we lock the door, and I say the incantations to the ancestors.”

“And afterwards?”

“Everything could change. Or nothing at all.”

He drew in a breath. “Or one of us could remember something that the other does not.”

I looked at him. “What are you not telling me? Is there something this could do to you that you are not telling me?”