Page 79 of Heart of the Shadow King

“Faraine,” I whisper.

Whirling, I pound the door again, all words lost in a roar. Five, six, nine times I smash that heavy stone. But as I raise my hands for a tenth blow, the door flings suddenly wide. I find myself standing on the threshold of my own home, staring into the face of a stranger. A trolde man, aged but still broad as a warrior. His face is deeply lined and hatched with scars, one eye milky with blindness. “Who are you?” I demand.

He blinks at me slowly. “Vor, son of Gaur,” he says in a low rumble. “The Master of Mythanar will see you now.”

My blood chills. Once more, I feel I have stepped into a dream. With a dreamer’s ungraceful lumbering, I follow the stranger into the dark entrance hall. Nolorstlights have been lit save for the one carried in the stranger’s own hand. Its glow flashes across the stone-wrapped faces of people as we pass. My people. My courtiers, my servants, my friends. All caught inva-jor, inanimate but still living. “What happened?” I ask, my voice harsh and echoing in this tomb-like space. “Who did this?”

The stranger looks back over his shoulder, his face half-lit by hislorst.“The Master of Mythanar will explain all.”

“And who is this master? Is it Targ?”

The man makes no reply. It’s all I can do not to slam him against the wall and choke answers from his throat. But no. Answers would be better taken directly from this so-called Master. I grind my teeth, bite my tongue, and follow the stranger to the throne room. Two armor-clad strangers throw wide the great double doors and stand aside. My escort halts in the doorway, indicating with a wave of one hand that I am to enter alone.

I step through into the vaulted space. At least it isn’t so dark—a host of unknown warriors line the walls, each holding a brilliantlorststone before his breast. They bow their heads to me, silent if not reverent. Their lights create a straight path from the door to the dais, the dragon-wing throne, and the figure standing before it.

I know him in an instant. Even with his back to me, half-hidden in shadows. I would know him anywhere, in any world.

“Sul,” I breathe.

He turns. Light washes over a face drawn and unexpectedly aged. He looks as though he’s lived many a long, hard cycle in the short weeks since his banishment. But he is still unmistakably himself. Beautiful, treacherous, and lethal. The brother in whom I placed absolute trust; the brother who betrayed me.

He holds my crown in his hands. The circle of black stone which once sat upon our father’s brow, and which many in my own court believed should have belonged to Sul.

“What is this?” I snarl, striding swiftly forward, eating up the cavernous space between us. “I made myself clear, did I not? You were never to enter the Under Realm again on pain of death! Have you stooped so low as to stage a coup in Mythanar’s most desperate hour?”

Sul does not answer. He simply watches my approach, silent and unmoving until I stand just before the dais. I draw my sword, its diamond planes glittering in thelorstlight. The warriors lining the walls make no move to defend their master. They stand as though they too have been caught inva-jor.Only their eyes are alive and watchful.

“Enough of this!” My voice rings to the high ceiling. I’m spoiling for a fight, a chance to vent my wrath. “You want the throne, Sul? You’re going to have to take it! Come down and face me once and for all!”

Sul blinks once. Then, with slow deliberation he descends the dais steps, his gaze never breaking with mine. He comes toward me, my crown in his hands, unarmed and defenseless.

And he goes down on his knees before me.

“Hail, Vor,” he says, his voice a cold echo against the stone walls. He raises the crown in offering and simultaneously bows his head. “Hail, King of Mythanar, Lord Protector of the Under Realm.”

33

FARAINE

The walls are lined with lead. So is the floor, the ceiling. Even the manacles gripping my wrists. Everything is lead.

“For every gift of power,” Sul said when he dragged me into this cell, “there must be an equally potent curse of weakness. The gods have ordained it thus, as you humans can so rarely be trusted with divine favors.” He fastened the manacles tight and hoisted my arms over my head so that my feet only just touch the ground. “Lead is a natural insulator against the resonance ofurzul.Which means you cannot access the source of your power through these walls, little witch. Neither can you control the minds of others. Not here. Not anymore.” He leaned in then, his beautiful face close to mine. “I only regret,” he snarled, “that I cannot kill you for what you’ve done. But I’m afraid that honor belongs to another.”

“Where is Hael?” I demanded, my voice thin and raw in my throat. “Where is my brother? What have you done with them?”

He did not answer. He simply backed from the chamber, his eyes locked with mine until the very moment when the door slammed, leaving me in absolute darkness.

How long has it been? Hours? Days? All sense of time, space, and reality is lost. All sense of self. There is only fear.

Not even lead can block out the near constant rumble under my feet.

Arraog. Stirring. Ready to wake.

Dark memories of the Urzulhar and the sacrifice whirl in my mind’s eye. Surely that couldn’t have been real. Surely I would not have done such a thing. The flow of power through my body was too tremendous, that feeling of connection to all those souls . . . all those resisting souls . . . It’s more than I can fathom. If only I could sink back into the comforting safety ofjor,never to return. But I cannot. For I cannot sense the stones. I am alone. Exposed and defenseless in the dark, left to muse upon my fate. Does Sul intend to leave me here? Chained up and forgotten? Buried alive . . .

Panic thrills through my veins, carrying me away on a tide of frantic terror on the brink of madness. I don’t know how long I remain in this state before I recall his final words:That honor belongs to another.Vor. He intends for Vor to kill me. That’s always been his plan, from the beginning. Which means Sul will have to keep me alive until Vor’s return. But Vor won’t kill me. He won’t. Vor loves me. He would never willingly harm me.

That was before I trapped a city full of people in deathlike stone.

---