Page 51 of Date Knight (Roll for Romance #2)
Yorick Proudhollow
T he security was much tighter than they’d expected, but eventually the party were able to slip past a guard distracted by a young woman in a revealing dress and make their way down the dark corridor he was meant to be guarding.
“Men are trash,” Calamity whispered, and Morgana shushed her, but Yorick could hear her breath stutter with laughter as she did.
Eventually, they made their way to the library, which was almost half the size of the ballroom, lit by an ornate brazier burning in the middle of the room.
As planned, Calamity cast a spell on Liam and herself, allowing them to levitate so they could more easily check the higher shelves.
The spell would only last ten minutes, but they only needed three in the end before Liam called out.
“Hey, check this out,” he said, dropping a book down to Morgana where she stood below him before guiding himself back down to the ground.
She turned the midnight blue leather book over in her hands.
The cover was embossed with the twelve-pointed star that had become all too familiar to them over the past months.
“Let me see,” Yorick said, snatching it from Morgana’s hands.
“Hey, chill out,” she said, but she didn’t take it back from him.
Yorick ran his finger over the symbol before turning the book on its side and letting it fall open.
It opened directly onto a page marked with a small piece of parchment.
The text told of an artefact called the Diadem of Dominion, which had been destroyed centuries ago but could be rebuilt with the right materials.
“What do you wanna bet those materials are astral diamonds?” Calamity asked as Yorick relayed the information to the rest of the party. “What does it do?”
“The gleam of the diadem,” Yorick read aloud, “once powered, proves irresistible to all who gaze upon the visage of the wearer once, engendering complete loyalty and obedience to any instruction the wearer bestows. This loyalty persists until the wearer or the loyal subject dies, or until the diadem is destroyed, which can only be done by magical means equal to those which created it.”
“It’s always mind control with these assholes,” Morgana muttered. “Okay, so we have to find the diadem and destroy it before Nephrine can wear it and turn us all into drooling minions, yeah?”
Yorick nodded and clapped the book shut. “That sounds about right.”
“Good luck with that,” a honeyed voice said, and the party spun around to see a shadowed figure in the doorway.
No, two figures.
Lady Nebora Nephrine stepped into the light, dragging a handcuffed Eden with her by the arm.
Nephrine’s robes were the same midnight blue as the book in Yorick’s hands.
They flowed over her shoulders and down her body, held tight to her waist by a matching leather belt.
At the centre of the belt was a golden buckle in the shape of a twelve-pointed star.
The noblewoman also wore the elf’s star crystal around her own neck, and suddenly it all made sense.
The diadem was infused with astral diamonds, so the only thing that could power it was something else from the astral plane.
Something like Eden’s crystal. Yorick felt so stupid.
The Twelve hadn’t been targeting him, they’d been targeting Eden.
But going after her would have been too obvious, so they’d plucked the string they knew was most likely to snap. Him.
“Let go of her,” Yorick demanded, taking a half step forward, but he stopped when he saw Eden shake her head.
“I wouldn’t be so reckless if I were you,” Nephrine said through a sickening grin.
Yorick swallowed the bitter taste that flooded his mouth at the reflection of his own words from earlier.
His eyes flicked to the place where Nephrine gripped Eden, noticing for the first time the dagger she also held.
“But thank you,” Nephrine continued, “for hand-delivering me exactly what I need to power the diadem. Come forward, my child.”
Yorick tried to look around, confused, but he realised with horror that he had lost control of his own body.
He took one step towards Nephrine, then another, and another, until he stood directly before her.
She nodded down at him, and even as he fought against the movement, his arms reached out in front of him, slipping the book into the pocket of her robe.
He tried desperately to will himself to cling to the tome, to not deliver it to her, but her control over his body held.
As soon as he surrendered the book, Nephrine snapped her fingers, and the flame burning in the centre of the room snuffed out.
A loud clicking noise bounced around the room, just as a thick black smoke began to fill the space.
Yorick regained control over his body, and his arms recoiled so suddenly that he hit himself in the gut.
Calamity uttered a spell in between coughs, and a magical light began to radiate from the now-extinguished brazier, illuminating the dense but already dissipating smoke. The party looked around in confusion, trying to see where Nephrine and Eden had gone, but they had disappeared.