Page 88 of Blood of Ancients

The silence dragged on. I wouldn’t back down, and Kelvar knew that. The Whisperer was just as stubborn as I was, and neither would he.

Finally, my brow crinkled as something came to me. Tilting my head, I said, “Tell me something, Whisperer. Why bring Corym E’tar?”

“Hmm?”

I put my hands on my hips, adopting a new stance. “Portals are the handiwork of the elves, sure, butIam the one who opened this one. You would need an elf no more than you would need me, unless, of course . . .”

“Unless what, cadet?”

Kelvar was goading me. Pushing me forward.

The realization made my eyes burn with shock.

“. . . Unless you were planning on going into Alfheim and you needed him as a guide.”

Kelvar’s smirk grew—devilish and wicked, a haunting sight on such a callous man. “I like to plan for all contingencies,” he said. “Can you fault me for it?”

I blinked at him, still in shock. “You . . . had always planned to go against Gothi Sigmund’s wishes?”

Kelvar’s hands appeared from beneath his cloak, the black gloves making everyone twitch with a start because we expected him to fling some sort of magic at us.

They lifted in a notion of surrender, harmless, palms out. “My plan has always been to see what the situation presents me with. No more, no less.”

“And?” I asked, wondering why he was agonizing me so much by drawing this out.

I realized it was because he didn’t want to give himself away. He needed to keep his air of mystery, his vagueness, even now.

I would never fully trust this man. But I couldn’t deny the blossoming of my heart or excited pumping of blood in my veins when I realized what he was trying to say.

“Now, dear children, I fear the situation has presented us with only one choice, if we are to succeed in our mission of retrieving Magnus Feldraug.”

Kelvar spun around, his cloak floating behind him a second later. With his back to us, he called out, “Prepare yourselves. In an hour, we leave this world and become the first humans to do so in a millennia.”

He shot a look over his shoulder at our struck faces, his lips curled in a frown. “And not one of us knows what may be waiting for us on the other side.”

Chapter 24

Ravinica

WE STEPPED THROUGHthe portal together. On a hair-raising quest to find my lost mate, with the mysterious Hersir Kelvar as our vanguard.

I wasn’t sure what I expected a portal through worlds to be like, but it was certainly something surreal and almost inexplicable in nature.

The moment our boots touched the worn wood of the cabin floor, the world around me darkened. Motes of blue and green shimmered in the air like dust specks, moving in waves and swirls that caught my eye, taking over the mundane wood of the lodge.

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