Page 59 of Amethyst and Iron
“With everything else we’ve been focused on, I didn’t bring it up sooner, but now we have a moment and there’s nobody else around, I need to.” She drew in a steadying breath. “This has to stay between us. The fallout for Sylas for performing that outlawed spell to save me would be beyond if the Guardian Movement knew about this as well.”
“Knew what?”
“Of the damage already evident that was done to the Valley of the Dead fromAuctoritas Mortis.”
“What do you mean? You saw something while you were trapped?”
She nodded. “I thought I managed it on my own, tearing a hole in the periphery of the Veil just outside the Valley of the Dead. But with Sylas performing that spell, it makes much more sense. It had weakened the integrity of the plane. That was why I was able to punch a way through.”
“You did what? You opened up your own breach?”
“For a few moments. Until it was hijacked by… someone. That’s what I need to tell you,” she said, grasping my hand, urgency taking her over. “I heard a voice that I didn’t recognize, then an orb of shimmering blue light obscuring somethingwithin itself passed toward the tear I’d made. It was snatched by somebody on the outside in the living world whose form I could see, but not their face. A red hood covered their facial features and all I could make out were black veins and straggly brown hair. The veins… they had to be the mark of black magic, because when I tried to push through the breach I’d made, his magic stopped me and it chilled me and tasted like sludge.”
“Those are both marks of black magic, yes. So you are telling me that this unknown figure prevented you from accessing the breach you had created with the aid of Sylas’ spell?”
“Yeah. He closed up the tear.”
“Hades,” I breathed.
“And the voice that was in there with me spoke to whoever that eerie bastard was when he handed him that orb of magic.‘Scion, remember our bargain. This for my freedom. You deny me and I will see you suffer alongside me here’.Those were his exact words. Does that mean anything to you? That name?”
“No. It doesn’t. But we will investigate.” Just like we were investigating so much else. “Do not worry, Velra. We will see to this.”
“What if the Valley of the Dead is irreparably damaged? What if Sylas performing that spell to save me unleashed something horrific?”
I gave her hands a squeeze. “We have severe immediate issues to concern ourselves with. You observed a cryptic interaction with very little information to go on. The harm to the Valley could have simply been that object being passed through, and if that’s the case we will find it and nullify whatever threat it poses. All of this can be dealt with. Although, through one step at a time.”
“Okay,” she agreed with a nod. “I just…”
“I know,little shadow.I know. Truly.”
“Of course you do.” She stretched onto her tiptoes in that adorable way she usually did when she wished to kiss me.
But then my senses screamed at me.
Magical and intuition alike.
I pushed from Velra, and spun around—
Just in time to snatch an arrow out of the air.
A cloaked arrow.
Velra choked.
I noted the trajectory as I’d snatched it. It had been headed for her shoulder. A flesh wound.
This was not an assassination attempt, not even an attack.
It was a warning.
“We mean you no harm!” I called out.
Another arrow whizzed by and I thrust out my hand as it was directed at Velra once again.
I felt another and spun, snatching it before it plunged into my thigh—or tried to.
I crushed all three to kindling in my hands, then thrust up a wall of my shimmering white power, just before a dozen others assaulted it, bending and shattering as they hit.
