Page 134 of The Cruel Dawn
And then Danar Rrivae.
And last, the man I love.
Jadon Rrivae Wake.
33
Elyn searches the aerie. She looks beneath worktables and scans the bookshelves, her face tight and her eyes narrowed. She mutters under her breath as she opens drawers and cabinets, as she paws through papers and maps.
I stand silently at the aerie’s threshold and watch her.
She senses that she’s being watched and spins around, wide-eyed.
Caught.
“What are you looking for, Adjudicator?” I ask coolly.
She shakes her head. “Everything. Everyone.”
I look around the bare room before gazing steadily at her. “No Agon?”
She exhales hard. “No, and the other wisdoms won’t tell me if he’s still here on Vallendor.” She scans the aerie once more.
“And so you’re looking for him in the drawers?” I step across the threshold with my hands clasped behind my back.
Elyn says, “Ha. I’m looking for any clues on his whereabouts, or about what we should do.”
“Like theLibrum Esoterica.” I wander over to the aerie’s sole window and gaze at the windswept bluebells below. “In your search, did you happen to find any other solutions?”
“We don’t need theLibrum,” she says. She looks up and rushes over with a grin. “Usese gave you a new sword. Let’s have a look.”
I know she’s changing the subject, but I slowly pull the blade from the sagging scabbard.
She gasps. “That is the most beautiful weapon I’ve ever seen, Kai.”
“Anyone who dares to touch it—mortal or immortal—will die,” I say, watching her. “It’s the most powerful blade on Vallendor.”
She snorts. “Unfortunately, it isn’t the most powerfulweaponon Vallendor.Jadonis still the most powerful weapon on Vallendor.”
“And yet I’m still supposed to kill him…somehow.”
She stares at me, tilting her head. “Yes, you’re supposed to kill him.We’resupposed to kill him. It was never supposed to beeasy.What’s wrong? Why are you acting like someone’s plotting something behind your back again?”
I laugh without humor. “Because many peoplehavebeen plotting behind my back. Because everyone I thought was a friend has now become my enemy!”
Outside the abbey, the sky continues to change, shifting from that sickly pink to a deeper indigo streaked with corpse gray. Impossibly, the Aetherium itself is rotting because of Vallendor’s march toward ruin. The Aetherium is rotting because of me and my failures.
Bursts of lightning suddenly flash behind thick, swirling clouds. The wind picks up—these aren’t frantic prayers of the realm-born calling on the gods for help. No, this wind slips through the cracks in the abbey’s stone walls. This is Vallendor collapsing.
I hold my breath as I wait for the storm to break and unleash the violence building in the sky—and in my uncle’s aerie.
Elyn says, “You can’t be suspicious of me again. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking… She knows where to find Agon. She’s looking for theLibrum Esoterica. Killing Jadon can’t be the only way to save Vallendor.”
“What?”Elyn screeches.
“Zephar’s betrayal changes everything.”
