Page 98 of Death Warden
I halt, and a moment later several robed figures enter the room.
“Well hello there,” Finley says.
But this isn’t Finley’s voice. This voice has a mocking edge to it, a reverberating quality that gives it an eerie echo, as if two people are speaking the same words slightly out of sync.
“Silence!” One of the robed figures steps forward and pushes back their hood.
It’s a woman with dark hair and wide blue eyes. I’ve never seen her before and yet I feel as if I know her.
“Ah, Loralie, come to pay your debt,” the fake Finley says.
“You killed my friends.” She spits out the words, body vibrating with rage.
“I merely claimed what was mine to take. We made a trade, and I kept my side of it. I gave you power everlasting. But you tried to trick me. You tried to shirk your end of the deal. You can’t simply take the goods without making a payment, Loralie. That isn’t how it works.”
“Take something else instead.”
“Instead of your life?” He chuckles. “Oh, that ship has sailed, Loralie. Sailed far away. There is nothing else I want.” His expression is bitter, almost…hurt.
“What does he mean?” a male voice asks.
“Nothing,” Loralie says quickly. “He loves playing games.”
“And so did you,” not Finley says with a seductive smile.
“Quiet, monster,” the male says. “There must be an alternative. Tell us what it is.”
Not Finley seems to consider it. “There is one way to be released from the trade.”
“Tell us how?” the male says.
“Father, don’t listen to him.”
“Hush, child,” the male says. “Tell us how,” he says to not Finley.
“I can reverse the trade and strip you of your power. The powerIgave you.”
Sharp intakes of breath filter through the room.
He taps his chin and smirks. “Everyone in this room has benefited from the power, feeding off the residuals. Of course, your direct bloodline will be the most powerful, but all who are born into the Blackmore, Thorne, and Crescent families have and will always benefit. But I can take that away… if you want.”
Murmurs fill the room, sharp words that make Loralie flinch. “We don’t have to,” she says to someone. “We have a plan. We use it.”
“And if it fails?” another male voice asks. “I won’t give up this power.”
“Neither will I.”
“Nor I.”
“Master Thorne, Master Crescent,” Loralie says. “We have a plan. And as long as we work together, neither of our families need suffer. No one else need die. We can’t give this monster what he wants.”
“What you agreed to,” the man in the arcane circle reminds her.
She pulls a statue of a black cat from beneath her robes and places it on the ground outside the arcane circle.
“What is this?” the man trapped inside asks.
“Your destruction,” Loralie says.
