Page 132 of Of Serpents and Ruins
"Hey, what’s happening?" Kine suddenly stood beside me, his attention split between me and Elias. His hands rested on his sash.
"It’s just a misunderstanding. Stella is getting paranoid." That same glint. That pull of his lips. The taunting in his eyes.
"What’s not paranoid is this necklace charm and the moonstone. This is a psychic stone and an activator." Arjax held it up by the leather band. "Where did you get this? This is the forbidden arts and not of this world."
My fists balled up at my sides. Rage boiled deeper inside of me.
Elias ripped off the binding over his arm and gestured toward the vivid tattoo on his forearm. The dark swirls and patterns were like living darkness against his tanned flesh. "Must I prove myself again? How far must I go to prove my value and my resolution in this matter? I have dedicated my life to you, Your Majesty. I searched for you when no one else knew it was possible. I am the reason you are here! And you question me?" There was mockery in his tone, and yet why would hehave bound himself in such a sacred manner when his plan was betrayal all along?
All I knew now was what my instincts warned. All his kind gestures, soothing words, and quiet presence meant nothing. He had been there for me, guiding me toward the path of Brandt’s destruction. Undermining my marriage. Deceiving us all.
"I do question you. I question everything you have done!"
His brow furrowed, his eyes now hard as slate. "Then you question what it is to be Sepeazian. You question the basis of our honor, that a vow made from the ink of our heartstones, our most sacred and grounded form of magic—"
"It’s a fake," Arjax said, still holding the leather band of the necklace. His black eyes burned, the edge of a cold smirk tugging at his mouth though his expression remained hard. "That ink. I can smell it. It isn’t from a heartstone. It isn’t sacred."
Kine looked as if someone had just struck him.
My fists clenched tighter.
Elias’s eyes widened briefly. "You can’t possibly—"
Arjax held his fist aloft. The necklace spun on the strand, the charm and moonstone sparkling. "I smell the taint of the forbidden arts on this necklace. I smell a world other than our own. Donotdisgrace yourself further or dishonor me by offering such falsehoods." His mouth curled with disgust. "And you smell of cedar. Cedar obscures many other scents. It is no coincidence that it is what you have chosen, is it? What else are you hiding, traitor?"
If looks could have killed, I would have burned Elias to a briquette. I wrapped the blanket tighter around myself as I stood.
Elias’s expression twisted. Disgust flared in his eyes. He fished a vial out of his outer robe and held it up. "Just this. Guess I’ll be leaving now. Not going to worry about the spear. You have to bring it if you want to make your final attempt. We’ll just takeit when it arrives." He smirked, his expression hard, his gaze falling to me. "You haven’t saved your beloved from anything except more suffering. See you soon, Stella. We’ll see if you’re in a more reasonable mood when you get to the Ember Lord’s Crest."
Kine lunged as Elias smashed the vial on the ground. Orange and green smoke exploded out while purple light flashed. It pulsed in red at the edges. He sprang through it, vanishing. The edges of his robes flared with fire, and the air briefly smelled like burned cedar and charred vanilla.
"Crespa. The bastard had a blood portal," Arjax muttered.
Lorna swore under her breath. She took a cloth and thrust it into his hand.
Silence fell over us. The steaming water and strange sulfuric smell from the portal had obscured most of his scent, almost as much as the curse obliterated Brandt.
I dropped to my knees beside Brandt once more. He still slept fitfully, his lips parting and strange syllables whispering past. A muscle flinched in his jaw.
My love.
The Gola Resh and her vicious magic were stripping him from me piece by piece. He was slipping away from me like the sands in that wretched hourglass counting down our doom.
My fingers knotted in the blanket covering him. My throat was hoarse from emotion, my chest tight. It was going to be all right. Elias had been exposed.
"It really was clever." Arjax placed the charm and moonstone in the dark-grey cloth and indicated the mark and shapes on the back. "This is a type of psychic stone. You can impress into it different types of instructions that will then happen. Like a delayed spell. When it’s cut like this, it shows the marks of the sigils. Look." He turned it over to reveal the part hidden by the metal backside. He grunted, his brow lined and his gaze sharp.
I barely managed to bring my gaze up. The sickness inside me intensified.
Arjax wrapped the stone up tight and bound it with a strip of cloth. "Most of that power went to forcing the curse to go faster. It pushes time forward. Destroying it won’t destroy the curse, but it will keep it from advancing, but the other sigil here is, well, it’s a calming. I’ll bet you he wore his own charms and sigils but kept them hidden, ones similar to the cedar to mask those scents and hide that he had been to Earth as well."
Kine sank onto a boulder near me, his hands grasping at his head. "I don't know how I missed that."
Lorna gave him a sympathetic look as she finished fishing Brandt's clothing out of the hot spring. Arjax had disappeared through the thicket. "He came to you when you were grieving the loss of your sister and told you he, too, was in mourning. He offered you hope when you had none."
Kine scoffed, as if he could not accept that. "I was so…so desperate. I would have sacrificed myself to save you in a heartbeat, Bug." His tongue pressed at his lips. "I didn’t take a life debt or a life bond, but I swore—I swore it, and I failed. Even worse, I let in someone who has been undermining everything from the start." He dragged his hand through his hair.
I could have blamed him. Could have snapped at him. Could have accused him. Instead, I shook my head, still kneeling beside Brandt. "Elias played us all for fools. He knew what he was doing."
