Page 31 of Lady for Embers

Talwyn blinked slowly at him. “You want me to go to the Shifter siblings and try to convince them to side with us?”

“Not try,” he said. “I need you to succeed, your Majesty.”

“What makes you think that is even a possibility?” Talwyn asked. “They sided with Avonleya during the Great War, as did the Witches. I suppose you want to recruit the High Witch next?”

“The High Witch has already chosen a side,” Alaric said. “Any Witches that will side with us have already been serving me for decades. But that is not the only task I have for you.”

“What does that mean?”

“This brings me to the second thing I require of you,” he said instead.

“I did not realize I was to be delegated to.”

A thin, pointed smile curved on Alaric’s lips, telling Talwyn she was trying his patience. “I am told there is someone in the prison beneath the Black Halls.”

“There are many people in the cells beneath those halls,” Talwyn returned. “You will need to be more speci?c.”

“She goes by a different name here, but I can only assume it is her. From what I have gathered over the decades and from what Tarek has shared, she is how the Witches and Shifters of this realm gained their gifts.”

Talwyn’s brows rose in surprise, and she sat back in her chair. “You speak of the Sorceress?”

“The Sorceress,” Alaric scoffed, something akin to annoyance ?ickering across his features. “It is unsurprising, I suppose, that she took that title here, considering her mother is often referred to as that.”

Talwyn glanced at Tarek, who was stoic beside her before returning her attention to Alaric. “What do you want with her?”

“I want you to release her.”

“You what?” she balked. “Absolutely not.”

“It was not a request, your Majesty.” His voice had gone low and deadly, but despite what Nuri had said, he was not her master nor her superior.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous she is?”

“I know exactly how dangerous she is if it is indeed who I believe her to be,” Alaric replied.

“Then you are incredibly stupid to want her released.”

The entire room stilled, and Tarek’s hand landed on her thigh beneath the table. He squeezed in warning, but there was no way in any of the realms she would be responsible for releasing the Sorceress upon their world. There was no way she was adding that atrocity to her list of sins.

“Tell me, your Majesty,” Alaric said after a long stretch of tense silence. “Do you know of Zinta and her sister, Taika?”

“No,” Talwyn replied tightly, wondering what this had to do with anything.

“Zinta is the true Sorceress. Her twin sister, Taika, is known among the gods as the Enchantress.”

“Then what is the Sorceress that resides in the prison beneath the Black Halls if not the true Sorceress?”

“Daughter of the goddess Zinta.”

“There is not a goddess named Zinta.”

Alaric arched a brow in amusement. “No? The gods and goddesses you serve here are not all that are in existence, your Majesty. There are many realms in just as many worlds. There are bloodlines and beings walking in those worlds that have never stepped foot in this one and some who have come and gone from this land.”

“Bloodlines like the Maraans?” Talwyn asked with a cold smile.

“Careful, Child,” Alaric said, his tone going arctic once more. “As I have repeatedly told Scarlett, we are here because of what lies guarded in Avonleya. If not for that, we would have never been sent here.”

“Explain that.”

---