Page 31 of Angel in Absentia
“It’s time to claim the prize of the Belgears,” Ryson whispered, suddenly restless again. He hoped from the ledge. “Let’s go.”
†††
Ryson walked through the dark hallways beneath the kingdom, Prince’s mask hovering over his shoulder.
He gestured with a wrist, and the large doors in front of him cracked and opened, a towering wave of cien flooding his senses and washing around him as he entered the chamber. Prince’s mask wavered and hovered back as Ryson continued to walk forward, stopping in Lord Belgear’s large coat.
Crossing his arms, Ryson inspected the swirling gem, encased in old, tarnished silver. It filled the chamber with pulsing power, shocks of black lightning darting out in every direction, dancing over dusted skeletons and other thieves who had tried to take it before.
“Oliver was quite the craftsman, wasn’t he?” Ryson said, a flash of lightning breaking through and searing across Ryson’s chest. He continued to simply watch, the skin healing as another strike of darkness sailed past his shoulder.
You claim boredom, but you could always challenge the Ashana. They are in many ways your equal in force. Perhaps the last equal.
“You mean, besides yourself?” Ryson asked.
Free my body.
“We’ve been over this,” Ryson said. “But that’s not what you really want? All along. You just want to be human. I remember it all now. Every detail, the heart of your existence and mine.”
Prince fell silent and didn’t respond.
Another stroke of powerful darkness flashed across his face, searing his jawbone. Ryson walked forward, the strokes of energy growing more powerful and more aggressive the closer he came. The winds howled; the room shook. His skin tore back and healed over and over as the gem flashed and transformed.
Ryson laughed once in delight as the gem was shrouded in waves of blackened energy, organs, and bones coiling together from otherworldly planes, cloaked in skin until a forest beast towered over him, horns grazing the vaulted ceilings that stretched up thirty feet.
Ryson snapped a hand up with a grin, moving as if cutting his fingers through the beast and shattering the gem in a savage and blinding release of cien. The monster roared as it vanished into dust.
The silence that remained was peculiar and empty. Ryson turned his hand over and allowed the dust that remained from the medallion to fall empty onto the floor. He inspected thedisfigured metal with Oliver Padren’s forged signet marked across the back.
He frowned.
You’re exceptionally well rested. I’m sure on another day, it would have been more of a challenge.
Ryson wiped the dust slowly and dreadfully on the lord’s coat.
Prince continued on as if he could sense Ryson’s disappointment and found it completely intolerable.
I’m sure there are other, vaster kingdoms out in the Wraithlands. Horrible, terrible places that are formidable.
Ryson wiped his hand again and then inspected his palm.
“Alkerrai,” Alina sang from the hall where they’d come. “There are vast rows of prisoners just beneath us, all starved, all close to death. There is no food for miles.”
Ryson looked over at Prince’s mask skeptically, raising a brow.
She’s right, Prince said.
“Fine,” Ryson responded, wiping his hands together and clearing the last of the dust off of them. “Kill them,” he replied and then looked over his shoulder. “But Alina,” he sang back, mirroring her tone, “torture any of them and I’ll gladly dismember you.”
He saw the light fade from her eyes, even from beneath the hood, her expression clear. He cracked a vicious smile and then looked back at the remains of the medallion and all of its reminders before his smile faded.
In thinking of the past with all of its weight, he could only think too of the future.
“The Deadlock Medallion, destroyed at last,” he said, defeatedly. Ryson’s senses expanded in the moment. His eyes narrowed, a slight smile crossing his mouth as he said, “You.” The world seemed completely empty beyond his silver eyes that watched with great clarity, turning into the darkness above him.
He reached forward tenderly, pulling Clea toward him from where her presence hovered.
†††
