Page 7 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

“Indeed.”

“Where are the missing sister stones?”

“Ah, ah, ah, Bastard of Darkness. For great information comes great sacrifice. And I am starving. Step deep inside the bedchamber for payment. To the door.”

Eyes black as night glanced over his shoulder.Another deal.

How many more before he would offer his life? Slowly peeling his skin bit by bit until he was raw and exposed. But he had no choice. If Alora was fated to use this dagger to damn Magnelis to a soulless death, to never return, he had to bargain once more.

So, he turned, rigid muscles flexing in the movement until his boots carried him to the bedchamber’s threshold. Garrik’s eyes raked over the frame of the door, fighting off memories of his smashed skull against them, staring at the cracks in the stone that his bones had made.

“Inside, to yourmaster, Whore of the Snake,” Kerimkhar demanded. “Find her, she who Made you who you are.”

But Garrik did not hear him. Drowned out by rhythmic sounds of movement inside the memory, his insides churned as they did every peaceless night. Smokeshadows cascaded from his body, entering the room before him, a wall of protection as one boot suffered another stepped inside.

Garrik gripped the hilt of his sword, nearly cracking the iron underneath.

The female was not truly there. He knew that. And instead of focusing on the sound of the screams, he looked at her, imagining his hands around her throat. Imagining his sword shoved through her back and watching blood trickle down in streams of justice on her pale, ice-cold skin.

Kerimkhar must have noticed, because a sound of displeasure bellowed across the bloodstained graystones.

Garrik stalked to the door and leaned his back against it, knee bent and boot pressed flat against the blackwood. A crooked grin twisted on Garrik’s face as he crossed his arms, staring through the balcony threshold, and sneered, “You will have to do better than this. Now, where are they?”

Cocking his head, a storm of darkness coiled around him, turning him into smoke and shadow and ash before he manifested as his born form on the balcony beside Kerimkhar.

Ten thousand voices chided, “Look for payment high and deep, where four is in one.”

Another fucking riddle.

“In the mountain surrounded by unstable seasons, there you will find Blood.”

“And Death?” Garrik asked.

Kerimkhar was silent.

“Death? I fulfilled your bargain.Where is she?”

“Payment is what you bargained for.Paymentyou received.”

Starsdamned lies and trickery.Garrik gritted his teeth.

“Find the crimson sister—Blood—payment. Join her with Life. Together, perhaps they will find she who is missing. For Life is the balance, Bastard of Darkness. She protects the balance, aligning with Destiny. And when two lives are linked, Blood takes her payment from who holds the dagger until all is drained. Death is ruthless, claiming the soul in which the blade has struck. Forever stolen, the soul can never return. Abolished from existence.”

Garrik stiffened, face bleak.Blood… Blood takes until all is drained…

Kerimkhar slowly nodded. “When Daughter of the Evening Star wields the dagger cradling the sisters three, she will die for Elysian, and I will be set free.”

She will die for Elysian.

“It is the only path, Savage Prince. There is no escaping this fate. The white-haired lioness is bound by Destiny.”

“What if I took her place?”

For the first time since Garrik walked into the crypt, Kerimkhar’s face fell expressionless. “You? Made for Magnelis, you arefoolish. Not even I hold the power to change one’s fate.”

Garrik’s mouth twisted into a wicked grin. “No … but Allseeah does. Where is he?”

Kerimkhar’s decaying lip curled, baring rotted teeth, yet remained silent.

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