Page 13 of The Demon Tide

Lukas Grey

Shadow hive cell

Location unknown

Lukas Grey roars back to consciousness, gasping for breath.

He finds himself bound by dark vines on a cavern floor in some type of prison, his cell’s bars made of dark smoke, a much larger cavern just beyond. Every affinity line in his body is painfully taut, his magic stretched by overwhelming force. His gaze darts wildly around, haze spitting across his vision as he’s caught up in one desperate thought.

Elloren!

There’s no trace of her anywhere.

He remembers that final, agonizing glimpse of her through the portal’s golden interior, screaming his name.His right fist clenches, yearning for a wand as he’s seized by desperation.

Scanning the cavern, he takes in every last detail—the young Level Five guard just outside the wavering bars. The bizarre stacked catacombs rising up the sides of the colossal vaulted cavern. They seem to go on forever, like a huge wasp nest. Mage soldiers with glowing gray eyes are emerging from the waspish cells and climbing down with unnatural agility, more gray-eyed Mages striding industriously through the cavern. A few of them lead multi-eyed dragons marked with Shadow runes, the dragons’ powerful bodies rendered to shades of steel.

He spots a soldier he knows, Curren Dell. He remembers Curren as a talented, idealistic Level Four soldier-apprentice back in Verpacia, well-liked and eager to defend the Magedom. Horror tightens Lukas’s gut as he takes in the blank, feral look on the young man’s face.

Lukas slants his eyes upward and takes in the corrupted Marfoir Elves scuttling up the walls on salt-white spider legs and the elongated, many-eyed wraith bats that hang from every outcropping. Shadow-polluted scorpios line the cavern’s base, the huge insects quietly chittering, their thoraxes marked with Shadow runes. Most of the scorpios have additional eyes, and Lukas spots one with a neck and head covered in a solid mass of them.

The power in his lines fires up, hot in his chest. He scans the scene once more, gaze flickering toward the wand grasped in his guard’s green-glimmering hand. Stealthily, he begins to test his Shadowy bindings and finds a slack portion just over his left hand...

As if sensing his fledgling rebellion, the guard meets Lukas’s eyes with a pitiless gray stare and lifts his wand.

A bolt of Shadow hits Lukas, triggering a blast of pain that arches his spine, a rasping cry forced from his mouth as his vision blots out.

When he comes to, he’s in motion, four Mages dragging him through a black stone tunnel. Torches burning with silver-spitting gray fire cast a fitful pewter light.

He grits his teeth as his back slides against the rough floor, the wounds that crisscross his skin a knife-slicing agony. He flexes his muscles, testing the tightness of his bindings. Locating the proximity of everywand...

His Mage guards slow, and Lukas twists his head around to find Vogel striding toward him, pale green eyes blazing. There’s a white bird emblazoned on Vogel’s priestly tunic, his dark cloak flowing behind him.

The Mage soldiers dump him at Vogel’s feet.

Panting from the pain reverberating through his lines, Lukas forces himself to his knees. He meets Vogel’s gaze dead-on and gives him a vicious smile. “Hello, Marcus. The demon-priest aesthetic suits you.”

Vogel rears back and strikes Lukas across the face, white-hot rage igniting as Lukas lunges for him only to be quickly bound up in more Shadow vines by the surrounding Mage guards and pinned to the floor, arms outstretched, their four wands leveled at him.

He glares up at Vogel, teeth bared as fury pulses through him. “I’d like to see you try that without your Shadow pets to hold me back,” Lukas hisses.

Even through his all-encompassing rage, he can’t help but notice the flash of frustrated fury in Vogel’s eyes.

“Ah,” Lukas chides, ignoring the blood streaking his face and the throbbing pain in his cheek. “Have your plans gone awry?” He broadens his smile, hoping to goad Vogel, desperate for information about Elloren. “She’s slipped out of your grasp, hasn’t she?”

Vogel narrows his gaze and runs his fingers over his Wand, looking more composed now, though his eyes are strangely edged with silvery fire.

“You had so much potential.” Vogel shakes his head. “I should have known you’d be a problem from your casual blasphemy, but I believed your loyalties to be true. Instead, you’ve done everything in your power to turn my Black Witch into a staen’en whore set against everything pure and good. And now, you will atone for it.”

Vogel raises his Wand, and Lukas gasps as his Shadow bindings briefly turn razor-sharp, cutting into his skin like curved knives. He battles back the cry threatening to rip from his throat.

Instead, he forces a chiding laugh. “Elloren has more power than you. And she’s going tocrushyou with it.”

Vogel’s lips lift. “Did you know the Icaral, Yvan Guryev, survived?”

A bolt of jealousy darts through Lukas’s power.

Vogel’s smile widens. “Oh, I felt that.”

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