Page 94

Avera shook her head. “You can’t have Luna. She’s been my steadfast companion for years. It would be cruel of me to hand her over to another.”

“It’s a horse. It will adapt.”

“Luna is more than a steed. She’s my friend.”

“I don’t know whether to laugh or pity you for that.”

Her cheeks burned hotly. “Neither, if you please. My position was one that didn’t invite friendship.”

“Then who is that standing outside?”

“Gustav, my Grand Rook.”

“I meant the other woman.”

“My Duchess.” She paused. “While recent, I guess you could say we are friends.”

“A friend you dragged with you into exile.”

“I’m not in exile.”

“Says the queen hiding in this derelict city.”

A frustrated Avera huffed. “This is useless. I didn’t come here to argue.”

“Neither did…” He paused and cocked his head. “I do believe we have company.”

She could hear Gustav’s low rumble as someone confronted him outdoors. “I should help him.”

“How? Barbed words are no match against steel,” the captain stated.

“I’m not useless,” she grumbled.

“Not useful either,” he countered.

She would have argued further but for a niggling sense. She glanced behind her to see the altar. No one there and yet… She stepped closer to it and eyed the basin with the brackish water at the bottom. The depression in the altar slowly filled with a dark fog. It both reminded her of the white mist from the Spire and not at the same time. Nor was it like the vapor from the statues she’d encountered. This coalescing darkness had a thickness to it, and as it filled the bowl it didn’t spill over but rose.

“What is that?” the captain asked coming close to peek over her head shoulder.

“Get away from the altar,” Avera suggested as she retreated a few steps.

“Is it dangerous?” he asked.

“What do you think?” Her sarcastic reply.

Avera pulled her dagger even as she didn’t know how it would help against something without substance. Outside, the talking turned to clangs of metal striking. Gustav had engaged whoever had confronted him. However, Avera couldn’t help, notuntil she understood the danger the fog posed. Would it be like the white mist and turn those it touched into mindless puppets? Or become a monster like the vapor from the statues?

Either way she should warn the captain. “The last mist I encountered more or less kidnapped people to serve a dark entity.”

“Better than the kind that poisons on contact,” he replied.

She hadn’t even thought of that possibility.

As her gaze remained fixated on the rising fog, she noticed it didn’t behave like the Spire’s mist. It twisted and roiled as it rose from the basin, coalescing into a shape with hind legs and arms, even a head with an elongated snout.

“What the fuck is that?” the captain exclaimed.

“A monster created via magic,” she huffed in alarm, her worry trebling as she realized there was nothing for her to break. No figurine or totem that she could smash to stop the attack.