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“About our deal,” Varlett’s steps were eerily quiet behind her, like she weighed nothing at all. Her voice was suddenly in Layala’s mind, “It’s silence—what I’m going to require of you.”

Layala looked over her shoulder. “What?” Goosebumps slid across her skin. How had she spoken to her mind like that?

Without moving her mouth, she said, “Soon you will know a detail about Zaurahel and me, something you saw. You must never tell him or anyone. You’ll know what I’m talking about.”

Mathekis looked back and forth between them, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“You’re making no sense,” Layala said.

“You’ll understand one day,” she whispered in Layala’s mind. “If your shiny new magic and that black cloud I witnessed around you earlier is any indication, it will be soon.”

“Keeping secrets, Varlett?” Mathekis said, casually, as if he didn’t care but it was obvious, he did.

“It’s between the elf and me.”

Was this a riddle? How could Layala know anything about Varlett and Zaurahel?

With Layala’s slow limp, they finally reached the end of the short corridor, and she held the torch closer to the shiny black wood. The carvings, similar to the Black Mage’s chair, were of lilies and serpents, intertwined together, weaving like an intricate dance. Something about the contrast between those two things was undeniably beautiful.

Steeling her nerves, Layala inhaled deeply. It was now or never. Her magic soared inside, biting at her flesh, ready to unleash hell. No doubt Varlett would have dosed her with katagas serum if they didn’t need her magic. Even if they said the Black Mage was in a deep slumber, she had to be ready for the possibility he waited, perfectly alert to fight on the other side.

But she paused with her hand on the door. “Why did you need Tenebris’s and Mathekis’s help? Why didn’t you just bring me here the day I came to your cabin in the mountains?”

“Zaurahel never told me how to wake him. As I said, we had a falling out.”

“But he told Mathekis?” She looked at him.

He nodded. “Though from what Varlett says, you already know what to do. I’m here to ensure what you were told was correct.”

“And Tenebris?”

“Made a deal with Zaurahel,” Varlett answered. “We all have our own secrets and parts to play.”

He made a deal four hundred years ago? She didn’t even want to know the details. Shoving her shoulder into the doors, she pushed through. Her gaze fell to the stone table and the body lying on top of it. No windows let in light. It was but a round tomb of ivory brick.

Something itched at the back of her mind; something about her dreams reminded her of this. One foot crossed the threshold, then two. She expected to hear Varlett trailing her, but the dragon shifter stood on the other side. Her scrunched, confused face turned to one of panic. Her hands pressed on the air in the middle of the doorway as if it was solid. “I—can’t pass through.” She even sounded like she was on the other side of a wall.

Mathekis, however, came inside with ease. “Interesting he would bar you, Varlett. You must have really angered him during that fallout.”

She let out a low growl. “Fix it, Mathekis.”

“You’ll wait and be invited in when he wakes.”

Layala full-on grinned at the dragon’s plight. Even her smallest inconvenience made Layala’s day.

“Layala, you must not kill him. Please. The goddess didn’t tell you everything.”

“I won’t allow her to,” Mathekis said and folded his hands behind his back, waiting beside the door like a sentinel. “Relax, Varlett.”

Layala ignored the dragon’s muffled pleas and Mathekis’s promises. They wouldn’t stop her. She planned for the possibility of them being here.

Her heart hammered with every footstep, quiet taps that seemed so loud now. It was as if a hush fell over everything. The torch in her hand crackled and sizzled, but that was the only sound. The hairs on the nape of her neck rose. The Black Mage’s chest didn’t move up and down with breath. He was utterly still. Would he somehow be perfectly preserved for four hundred years without a beating heart? Was he a pale one? Her eyes trailed over his black boots, then up the thick leather, fitted pants. At his waist a silver buckle etched with a rune at its center. A deep red leather, silver-studded vest covered his upper body, and an ebony cloak wrapped around his shoulders draped onto the floor. She was mere feet away now.

She gasped. The rushing of her blood throbbed in her ears. She gulped and took a step back. His ashy, near black hair brushed against his shoulders, curling slightly. His fair skin looked exactly like someone who hadn’t seen the sun in hundreds of years, but he wasn’t milky white like a pale one, and he didn’t have black lips or the dark circles around his eyes. She blinked several times, scrutinizing every inch of his remarkably beautiful face. Maker above, he looked so much like… Thane.

Chapter41

What did this mean? The likeness was uncanny.Shewas supposed to be his relation… was this a magic trick? It must be an illusion to make her hesitate. Thane could trace his royal lineage back for thousands of years on both sides. There was no way he was related to the mage.