Page 115 of A Deception of Courts

“The Draeic are drawn to it for a reason. It calls to them like a beacon,” Aldrick replied, wheels screeching in chorus with his tired voice. “Their presence here alone confirms our victory is closer than ever before.”

I locked eyes with Duncan. He’d pulled the helmet from his face, revealing moon-wide eyes that reflected the same horror that turned my limbs to stone.

“End this,” Duncan mouthed to me, but Aldrick was already back in my mind, forcing his will.“With haste, follow me.”Like the puppet I was to play, I moved toward him before he had the chance to see that I hadn’t followed.

I caught something in my peripheral. Movement in the mirrors behind Duncan. My knees almost gave out as the figure of brimstone, fire and shadow stepped forward.

Duwar. It was here. Duncan noticed my change in expression. I saw it in the rise of his dark brows and the softening of his eyes. Panic surged through me as I felt the demon god boring through my soul with its fiery stare. Before my knees gave way, I snapped my attention back to Aldrick.

He had his head turned slightly, regarding me through a side-eye. I sucked in a breath, hissing through gritted teeth.

“Kayne, the creation of our gate is a success. Because of you, because of the information you have shared, Duwar shall be freed and the world will be ours to claim.”

CHAPTER 32

We’d been deceived from the moment we arrived.

Rinholm wasn’t empty of Hunters as we had been made to believe. Because, as we followed Aldrick through the castle, the hallways and rooms became thick with bodies. The stench of stale, sticky skin infected the air, successfully burying the sweet kiss of spring.

They were like statues. Unmoving and frozen, guarding the inner castle like a forest of waiting soldiers.

Duncan kept close to me. Even if I wished to reach out, I dared not. I could have brushed my fingers across his waiting body behind me, but any connection could’ve given us away. His solid presence was a shield at my back, and I was thankful for it. With the countless eyes following our every move, I couldn’t do anything but keep my gaze set on the back of Aldrick’s thinly silver-haired head as his presence parted the walls of Hunters like a rock did to a river.

“Pardon the audience,” Aldrick said, turning his face slightly until I glimpsed his hooked nose and drooping chin. “My creation requires the best of our numbers to protect it. Each man and woman has been hand-picked and would sacrifice themselves willingly to ensure the gate is safe from those who would wish to see it destroyed.”

This is what he was doing. Protecting the one thing that really could destroy the world as we knew it. Not the gate on Irobel, but here, in Wychwood – made by the madman himself.

“And you trust them all?” I asked, eyeing the stoic and still bodies.

A shiver coursed up my arm as a smile twisted Aldrick’s face. “I have peered through every thought and every memory that occupies their minds. There’s not a shadow that I have not infiltrated. Each of these brave humans has laid themselves bare for me. I trust them all, not because they have earned it, but because I have judged them and found them worthy.”

“Does that answer your inquiry?”

“Yes,” I replied aloud. If Aldrick heard the frozen sharpness of my voice, he didn’t react to it. “It does indeed.”

We finished our short journey in silence. I took the time to map out our surroundings, or the little I could see through the haze of Hunters standing around us. All I could do was memorise the turns. Keeping a trail clear in my mind for a way back… if that was ever an option. The second I killed Aldrick, we would have a wave of Hunters ready to fight for him. I was suddenly thankful for the proximity of our friends, even if I didn’t know where they were. When the time came, I would need them close.

The castle walls receded, giving way to an open garden brimming with light. If there had been doors to exit through, they had been long removed. From the jagged walls, it seemed something had torn them free with force.

The garden beyond revealed itself slowly the further I followed Aldrick into it. I couldn’t see much through the multitude of bodies, but I could hear everything. As I stepped out into the cooler air, I ducked with a gasp as the Draeic made their presence known. It was above this place that they flew in their endless circle, chasing one another’s tails in a circle of dark, scaled flesh.

“Only Duwar’s enemies should dread his hounds. Creations born of chaos power that even I cannot comprehend.”Aldrick pierced through my mind, searching for something, I was sure of it.“You are his champion, Kayne. You have nothing to fear from them.”

Aldrick saw the fright in my mind, an emotion even I couldn’t hide. But it wasn’t only the monster’s presence that scared me.

The faint pulling that I’d felt when we first arrived had returned. Perhaps it never disappeared, but I simply grew used to its call. Now, stepping free into the open garden within the heart of Rinholm Castle, it spiked with intensity.

Like the Draeic, the gate they flew above called to me, for I was its key.

Four mounds of dark stone speared through the earth and reached up to the heavens. Labradorite. Altar’s bones. Even from a distance, I could understand their sheer height and size. Decay spread beneath them. Like blood pooling from the body of a victim, the stones drew the life from the grass bed, turning it brown and wilting flora until they were unrecognisable.

I blinked and saw Gabrial’s vision. It was as if this scene had been plucked directly from it and recreated before me. She’d shown me the gate the Nephilim had protected in Irobel, but here one waited before me. Different in location, but the details were all the same.

But how? Aldrick said this success was down to Kayne, but Kayne had never seen this vision, and nor did I share it with him.

More questions overlapped others, and I knew I was missing something in the path to Aldrick’s success.

Hunters pushed Aldrick’s chair, wheeling directly through the circle the stones created. Whispers of silver-grey mist twisted around his chair, disturbed by his presence. I hadn’t noticed the sea of it hanging inches from the floor, as though repulsed by it.

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