Page 126 of The Nymph Prince

He lowered his hood. Bile rose in my throat at the sight. His rotten face and the prominent veins around his eyes made him look even less human than he had in my dream. As more of the figures lowered their hoods, I noticed they were all in various stages of decay, too.

What made them look that way?

What was it Kellan had told me when we’d first visited the seer?

“Darkness eventually corrupts those who use dark magic. The body begins to…change,”Kellan had said.

“Change how?”I’d asked, worrying that I’d rot someday, too, since I was a mage.

“Mages do not have to worry about it, for they are not fully human,”he’d then explained, easing my worries.“But when a human meddles with dark magic, the body cannot hold such darkness and it starts to rot the person from the inside out.”

If what Kellan had spoken was true, then why were the hooded figures rotting? If they were mages, it didn’t matter if they went dark or not.

Unless…they were human.

As the realization hit me, so did a massive wave of confusion. Why would humans be leading the dark mages? The other people around me looked normal. Their skin—tones ranging from light to dark—were smooth and not sickly like that of the hooded men. Why would humans lead them? The seer was even human; she was rotting, too.

It makes no sense.

And why did my stomach suddenly twist? As though I was missing a crucial piece of the puzzle.

“Come with us.” The man with the decomposing face reached for me.

I jumped out of the way before he could make contact with my skin, not wanting his sickly hands anywhere near me. The others then walked forward, their arms stretched toward me.

“Stay back!” I drew my dagger and sliced it through the air as a warning. My magic moved beneath my skin, but I wanted to save my strength for when I truly needed it. “Touch me and die.”

A cackling laugh rang out then. The seer. She appeared at the back of the group and made her way forward.

The robed men stepped aside to let her pass, bowing their heads as she did. Her black gown had cobwebs and rips, and the veil she wore did very little to shield her nightmarish appearance: a pale face, black around her milky-white eyes, and holes around her blackened lips where the skin had rotted away to the bone.

“Child of the dark,” she whispered, her voice traveling through the air like a chilling breeze. “He has waited for so long.”

He?

None of it made sense. Why would the dark mages follow the seer and the human men? They believed themselves superior to the human race. It was why Haman first rose up and started the war a hundred years ago. With that type of pride, they’d never allow themselves to be governed by the very beings they thought so little of.

“Whoeverheis will remain waiting,” I responded, glaring at her. “I will never welcome the dark.”

“Ah, but you will,” she said as her grotesque face twisted with a smile. “I wanted to dig my nails into you and keep you with me when you and your men visited my cave.” She lifted her hands and showed her sharp fingernails. “But I couldn’t, for it wasn’t your time. It wasn’thistime. He speaks to me, you know. Whispers in my ear.”

I suppressed a shudder as she laughed again and touched the side of her face, swaying side to side like a mad woman.

“Oh, how he whispers,” she continued before chomping her teeth at me. “He has plans for you, yes he does. Plans for us all.”

“How were we able to communicate in my dream?” I asked, doing my best to ignore her insane mutterings.

“Wasn’t a dream, no it wasn’t.” The seer came toward me, grabbing the front of my tunic and cackling.

I shot backward, but there was nowhere to go. No escape. A building was behind me and mages surrounded me on both sides. I looked up at the gray sky. Dark clouds threatened to pour on us any moment.

If only I could fly. I thought of the bird again, how free I’d felt as I soared and touched the soft clouds.I could leave this place.

“He had that power, too,” the seer said, running a sharp nail across my collarbone. She smelled of death, a nauseating scent. “He could go anywhere in his sleep. His spirit would leave his body and he’d fly. Soar. We knew you’d eventually find us, if we chanted long enough.”

I’d left my body in my sleep?

Remembering the blade in my hand, I lifted it and held it to her throat. “Release me.”