Page 61 of Sundered By Fate

Sylthris smiled with unsettling amusement. "My trade is secrets, my dear boy. One need only know where to look."

Aric fought to steady himself, his senses warring against the nightmare images still clawing at his mind. Her presence in Astaria felt wrong on a primal level. The very air around her was thick with the acrid smoke of an encroaching storm, drowning out the fresher scents of spring wildflowers in bloom.

But she was here, somehow, even amidst the warded bastion of white stone. She was here, and every instinct Aric had screamed that it couldn't mean anything good.

"You're going to tell me what you're planning," he said through gritted teeth. "And you're going to do it now."

As Aric's hand whipped through the air, light flaring at his palm?—

Nothing happened.

No brilliant shield. No fiery glow. No familiar surge of power thrumming through his veins.

His breath hitched as a more primitive fear washed over him. But before he could react, Sylthris was on him, slamming him back against the cool marble of the archway. He strained against her hold, but her grip was inhumanly strong, pinning him in place with ease.

"You're in my space now, sweet mage." Sylthris's voice was a tickle against his ear, cold and smooth like moonlight on a dagger's edge. "Your little tricks are useless here."

Aric struggled to make sense of it. Suppressing his powers within Astaria itself? It was unthinkable. The wards that protected the city, the Tower's mages—they should have warned him. But something had gone very wrong if Sylthris could even be here. That she could completely shut off Aric's abilities . . .

"What do you want from me?" Aric ground out, refusing to let fear take hold in his voice.

"I'm here to help," she said. "Whether you believe it or not. Your city is in danger. But explaining it to you . . . would take far too long."

Her eyes gleamed with an eldritch light as she spoke, two stars shining in the night. Aric tried to look away, but her grip on him was unyielding, her will a palpable force pressing down on him.

"It would be easier to show you."

And with that, Sylthris plunged Aric into darkness.

The world around him faded away, Astaria's white stones and the bustling streets dissolving into mist. Aric fought against the pull, tried to ground himself in the real and the tangible, but it was like swimming against a tide. His limbs felt heavy, his thoughts slow and muddled. The darkness wrapped around him like mist, suffocating and thick.

Aric's stomach lurched as the vision took hold, pulling him down, down, down?—

He felt . . . hands and chains and weight.

The floor cold and unyielding beneath his knees.

The pull of a dozen eyes on him, rank with scorn.

Was this still a vision? A dream? But it felt so real, too real—Aric didn't know if he wanted it to be the truth. Or if this was just?—

How had he gotten here?

He could see, he realized, but the sight was as if through a fog. Too bright, too dark, the light all wrong. He shifted his head, trying to move. But the chains were too heavy. The guards at either side of him were too strong.

Cold fury hung on the air like ice shards.

It sliced into him, pinning him to the ground with its merciless weight.

The Throne Room of the Wrathforge's citadel rose around him, oppressive stone walls that seemed to absorb all light. Torches glowed with an eerie greenish hue, their flames casting flickering shadows that danced like phantoms. Heavy black draperies hung from the vaulted ceiling, embroidered with sigils that pulsed with dark power. In the center of the room stood a massive onyx throne, its jagged contours reflecting the warped shapes of the room around it.

Sovereign Zaxos sat upon it, a towering figure of obsidian black skin and molten gold eyes that seemed to pierce through all they surveyed.

Aric's—or was it Malekith's?—vision swam and undulated with a surreal quality. He couldn't even feel Malekith's consciousness beside him; a blank spot in their bond throbbed where he should have felt him like a second skin. His senseswere sharp and fragmented at once, both immediate and detached. He couldn't tell if he was truly here or trapped in a cruel vision meant to torment him. He couldn't find himself—the real him—at all.

But the anger radiating from Zaxos was real enough, palpable as any iron shackle. Aric couldn't tell whether it was Malekith who was cowering or himself.

"You have much to answer for," Zaxos growled, voice a deep rumble that seemed to vibrate through the very stone of the citadel. "And much punishment yet to endure."

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