Page 33 of Storm of Shadows
My jaw tightens. I want to tell her I must leave, but what excuse can I give? If I tell her the truth about Arluin and his necromancers, she’ll send for the High Priestess who will want to ask me questions. That’ll waste more precious time.
Yadira dips a cloth into a bowl of water and wrings out the excess. She dabs it across my brow and inspects my now healed injury. Once satisfied, she turns to leave. I grab her wrist before she can escape. “The one who brought me here,” I say, “where is he?”
“Don’t worry,” she replies gently, lifting my fingers from her wrist and freeing herself from my grasp, “you needn’t ever worry about him again. The temple has already dealt with him.”
“Dealt with him?” I echo, my throat closing around the words. “What do you mean ‘dealt with him?’”
“You’re safe now. That demon will never again hurt you.”
Panic rages through me, heightening my pulse to an alarming rate.
Natharius is dead?
The priestess peers at me, examining my expression. She’s likely wondering why I’m horrified a demon has been defeated. I must relax. I can’t afford to reveal my fear.
Besides, Natharius can’t die. At worst, the priestesses will have banished him back to the Abyss. And I’ve already considered this outcome. If he’s truly been defeated, I’ll teleport back to Nolderan and find another soul-gem in the Vaults to summon him again. It’ll delay us further, and I’d risk dark magic consuming all the aether in my veins by invoking the ritual again, but at least not all hope is lost.
I exhale deeply and allow the tension in my shoulders to slip away. The priestess’s confusion disappears, and she seems to interpret my reaction as relief for my safety. She gives me a nod and turns away, leaving me to sleep.
“Zephyr!” I hiss once she’s gone. He doesn’t reply. I crawl across the bed and prod his azure scales until he wakes. He sleepily blinks at me. “Where’s Natharius? Is he alive?”
Thankfully, the faerie dragon nods.
“Do you know where he is?”
He shakes his head.
I sigh and sink into the pillows. At least he’s alive, even if I don’t yet know what has happened to him and what the priestess meant by him being ‘dealt with.’ Maybe I can try reaching out to him with a mind-link.
I draw aether into my hands and imagine the Void Prince as vividly as I can. I’m not sure which form he will currently be in, and I don’t know whether his appearance will make a difference to my spell. My tutors at the Arcanium never taught me how to forge a mind-link with one who can change their forms. Maybe I ought to go with his demonic form, since I think that’s his true appearance. Or is it? After all, he was born a moon elf.
In the end, I settle for his moon elven form since that’s what I’m more familiar with.
I paint a portrait of him in my mind, and he becomes more real with each brushstroke. I imagine his silvery hair, as bright as the moon, and the sharp angles of his unyielding face. His crimson eyes burn with wrath, and a hateful smirk writhes on his lips as he laughs at something to do with my demise. I can almost feel the aura of dark magic exuding from him, and a chill crawls over my skin. When he becomes so real that looking at him angers me, I release my spell.
“Aminex,” I say softly, not wanting the priestess to hear the spell-word and return to my room. I hope she can’t sense my use of magic.
“Little mage,”comes his velvety voice.“You aren’t dead after all.”
“If I were dead, you wouldn’t be here.”
I can almost hear his resulting scowl.
“Are you here in Esterra City?”I ask.
“Unfortunately.”
“Where?”
“In their temple.”
“So am I.”I frown, though he can’t see it.“Where exactly are you in here?”
He pauses.“The dungeon.”
So, that’s what Yadira meant about him being ‘dealt him’. “You’re in their dungeon?”I repeat, my tone incredulous.
“That’s what I said,”he growls.“Are you deaf or just stupid?”