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Sirus could not help but think of Merlin, and his skin burned with rage. Levian had spoken of the draw of power with such acute disgust because she knew what it was like to have a father fall prey to its temptation. At least Merlin had not used her to his darker ends. At worst, he’d cast her aside as if she’d been nothing more than a fly at his ear.
It was good Gwendolyn’s father was dead, Sirus thought, because he was a monster and held no shame in such things. If this Jacard still lived, he would track him to the ends of the earth and kill him himself.
As Levian and Barith shot barbs back and forth, Sirus struggled to focus. His skin still tingled from his encounter with Gwendolyn. It tingled with the promise of her challenge. Tonight. Come find me. Conflict roiled within him.
“It’s settled, then,” Niah said.
The dragon stalked out of the room in a flurry of grumbled curses, declaring he needed air and to help with the dishes.
“He’ll calm down,” Levian told them, watching him go with frustration. The mage let out a deep sigh and looked to the ground. “I don’t know what to tell Gwen,” she admitted.
“You should rest,” Niah told her. “It’s been a long few days.”
Levian smirked coyly. “Haven’t you heard? There is no rest for the wicked.”
“I’ll speak to her,” Sirus offered.
The mage looked grave and shook her head. “Perhaps we should wait to say anything,” she thought aloud, “until I can speak to Merlin. I don’t want to blindside her, and it feels cruel to say anything without knowing for certain whether any of this is true.”
Sirus was fairly certain without Merlin’s confirmation, but he liked the idea of not telling her. Not yet. Maybe he was a coward, but he simply did not want her to suffer the truth this day.
He nodded in agreement. What did it matter if they waited a few days more?
Chapter Ten
Aldor had failed. Again. She’d escaped him. Again. Snatched by the vampire. Again.
He sat on a stool in the darkness, staring into his magick mirror; as he had for who knew how long. Days had passed. Weeks. Possibly months. He’d barely eaten or showered or anything besides stare into the mirror.
Aldor’s cursed mirrored eyes reflected back at him in the dim light. They were sunken and dark; his skin sallow; a dark beard with flecks of blond had begun to grow from neglect; and his hair was so long it obscured his vision. The clothes that were once tight on his broad body hung loose.
He’d always thought himself mad. Driven by a singular purpose to reunite with the soul stolen from him as a babe. That madness had fueled him. Now it threatened to pull him beneath the surface once and drown him.
Nestra thought he was away, hunting tirelessly for her prize and the vampire’s heart. She knew not that he wallowed in his failure on temple grounds. Near enough for her to storm in and strike him through the heart for his incompetence and for failing her. Again.
The vampire’s dried blood lingered on the black blade in his hand. He didn’t know how they’d escaped, nor how they’d managed to destroy the magick mirror they’d passed through, but at least Aldor had a taste of satisfaction knowing the vampire was dead. Even if it was bitter.
Gwendolyn Moore was shielded by magick. The mirrors had given him no clue as to where she hid, and though he’d lost scope of how much time had passed during his wallowing, Aldor felt the weight of it growing heavier and heavier. What time he did have was running out. He couldn’t hide forever, and if his mistress discovered his failure—he was as good as dead.
He’d considered running. A bag sat by his small bed, full of his few belongings. Aldor had stood with it in hand many times over the last week, his skeleton key lying over his chest as he debated where to go. There was nowhere.
If he ran, he would be exactly what he was at the start: an outcast with no hope of salvation—scraping to survive. There was no place for creatures like him in this world. For the cursed. There was no place for him to run. So he sat staring into the mirror. Debating.
The shadow fae trapped within the dark mirror would give him guidance, but Aldor feared the cost.
The last price he’d paid Xel’voth had been steep.
How he’d managed to get the book Xel desired from the king’s library, Aldor still didn’t know. Luck and the grace of the Light had kept him from being discovered.
Breaking into the tomb of the Dawn King had been easier than expected, but Aldor felt the weight of what he’d done even still. He’d prayed for forgiveness in the tomb for taking one of the King’s bones. He only hoped it would be granted.
The blade—the Dökk blade that had met flesh. His grip around it tightened until his knuckles ached.
Aldor still didn’t know how Xel’voth could have such knowledge when the mirrors themselves did not, but the imprisoned creature had kept his word at their last meeting and had guided Aldor to seek the woman out through a particular mirror. He’d sworn then that he would never ask the dark imprisoned fae’s help again.
Desperation clawed at him once more, taking him apart piece by piece, until he finally stood from his stool. Aldor swallowed his anxieties—he would not drown yet—and entered the mirror.
When he came before the inky surface of the vile creature’s gilded frame, the black mirror splintered. “I was wondering when you would come,” Xel’voth mused, his silken voice cutting the silence. A pair of silver eyes glowed through the shadows within.
