Page 10 of Vasmora

“No!” Dolion cried out, reaching out for them, and a light flashed at his fingertips, followed by an agonizing white-hot pain that seared his flesh. Dolion let out a pained growl and lowered his hands to find the skin torn away at his fingers. The ward had reversed. “Godsblood. No!”

Still, the boy kept his gaze locked on Dolion, never once breaking his stare. A second figure stepped into view, his tall, lanky form recognizable even though his eyes were covered by a black velvet cloth.

“Akmyrios!” Dolion grunted, cradling his injured hand.

The last time he’d glimpsed his old colleague, the mage had been lying on the floor of the Magestroli’s ritual chamber, clinging to life beside a glob of jelly that had once been his eyeballs. He and the magehood had attempted to turn Maevyth into a bloodstone by using the very sablefyre she’d learned to control.

A revelation Akmyrios had discovered the hard way.

“Hello, old friend.” Akmyrios set his hand upon the boy’s shoulder, and the spinning halo of light came to a halt, hovering in the air above the child. The six bloodstones sat interspersed with the six silver marbles. Akmyrios turned his palm upright, and the bloodstones gathered in his hand. “I must say, you’ve certainly not made it easy to acquire these.”

“How?” The burn at his fingertips intensified, as Dolion’s body scrambled to repair the ravaged skin.

“Seven stones once powered the septomir. It took seven of us to remove the stones and negate its power. Forced by the king with a sword to my throat. He then honored my six colleagues by ordering their murder, carried out by the noble Imperial Guard. I was spared.”

“The sarcophagi. You exhumed them.”

“You established a very powerful ward, my friend. In all my years of studying magic, I would’ve never found a way to breach it on my own.” He ran a gentle palm over the silvery hair of the boy beside him. “My protégé possesses the very rare ability to summon multiple forms of magic at once. He can manipulate all six powerful bloodlines as if he were playing with marbles. He’s going to make a very powerful Magestroli one day. Not even I am capable of such a thing.”

“I suspect you’ll kill him well before then.”

“Children are like dogs. You care for them, and they will grow to be loyal.”

“So, you used him to summon the magic of dead Magestroli.”

Akmyrios shrugged, circling the boy like a gaunt shadow. “There was no other way. And I now possess six of the seven stones. I need only find the girl, and all of Aethyria will be spared from what festers in the mortal lands.”

Torryn growled and lurched forward.

“No!” Dolion shot out a hand to stop him. “They’re now protected by the stones. They’ll shield whoever possesses them.”

“The mortal is dead.” The words hissed out of Rykaia, her jaw tight with obvious rage. “She and my brother perished in the mortal lands.”

“My sources tell me otherwise.”

“Where is she?” Rykaia snarled, jumping to her feet, and the barrier wavered in threat to her abrupt movement.

Akmyrios’s lips pulled to a smile. “I suppose it would do you well, as you rot at the bottom of the sea, to imagine someone, somewhere else is suffering far worse.” He rolled the stones in his palm. “She and her two companions were captured by General Loyce.”

As if her bones had wilted, Rykaia fell to her knees. “Which companions?”

At first Akmyrios didn’t bother to answer, but held up one of the bloodstones as if he could see it through the empty sockets where his eyes used to be.

“Which companions!” Torryn bellowed, and the mage slowly lowered his stolen prize.

“I’m not privy to that information. But don’t fret. The mortal will be extracted by the magehood. Though her fate will be no better than theirs.” He lifted his palm, where the six red stones sat. “Now let us prepare your vessels. The sea awaits.”

CHAPTER THREE

DOLION

Screams breached the darkness.

A cloying scent clung to Dolion’s throat, and he exhaled a gasp, opening his eyes to a suffocating blackness. An unbearable burn tore across his fingertips, and he grunted, recalling that foolish moment when he’d reached for the stones. On instinct, he raised his non-injured hand, and a hard, cold surface met his fingertips.

“Help me!” Rykaia screamed over a hard thumping sound somewhere beyond the darkness. “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!”

“Rykaia!” Dolion called out. “Calm yourself. You’re not alone. I’m here.” Urgently, Dolion called upon his Nexumis, summoning a faint light from his palm. Walls of blackened stone swallowed him where he lay supine, the height of the granite ceiling only tall enough to accommodate his bent knee. Faint notes of spices and cedar could hardly mask the putrid stench that clogged his lungs, as he guided the light to his left, illuminating the skeletal remains of a human skull. “Godsblood!” Dolion jerked back, clacking the bones that must’ve lain beneath him.