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In the ensuing silence, one could have heard a pin drop.
“What do you mean, he looked like me?”
Nava cleared her throat and waited for the room to stop spinning around her. The gentle crackling of the fireplace in the background wasn’t helping. It only reminded her of the fires brought by the Zorren. “I’ve crossed a portal twice in my life. When we came to this kingdom to rescue you. And then yesterday. Both times, a man approached me in the darkness. I had a hard time seeing him the first time, but that changed last night.”
“Go on,” Arkimedes urged, his face drained of color.
Her stomach churned, but there was nothing for it. She had to continue. She’d promised to tell him the truth, even if it would be easier in the short run to hold it in. “When I crossed the first time, one voice asked for a memory, which I expected, but there was someone else inside with me. Devon mentioned back in the castle that he heard no one else?—”
“True,” Devon confirmed. “You told me about it during our first dinner with the king.”
Nava nodded. “He knew I was a Beekeeper, Ark. And he hurt me because of it.”
“You’re a what?” Devon exclaimed.
Arkimedes didn’t pay him any attention. His eyes zeroed in on her wound instead, although he raised his gaze to search her face before he spoke. “He looked like me—but did you feel it was me?”
She understood what he was asking. Underneath all the fear and confusion, their unique soulmate bond allowed them to feel each other. Their love remained, despite the weakened bond.
The similarities had been jarring, but… “No. He had your face, the same nose and lips. His armor resembled the Zorren’s.” If only she could recall more details to fill in the missing pieces of this puzzle. “His hair was white like your father’s.”
“You know I would never hurt you, Nava.”
“I know that.” She cradled her arm against her chest. “It shocked me when it happened. But I’ve never doubted that I’m safe with you.”
In the uncomfortable silence that took over the room, it was hard to ignore her soulmate’s harsh breaths or Devon’s intense gaze.
After an eternity, Devon spoke. “The child of royal blood came to this world sick, poisoned by evil, and was taken into the world of shadows, away from the land and our people.” Nava shot him a questioning look, but he was clearly addressing Arkimedes. “Those were the words I translated from that burnt book you brought me back to the castle.”
“What are you saying, Devon?” The urge to climb over the table and choke him for planting a seed of doubt in Arkimedes’s mind was strong.
“I’m saying Arkimedes brought me a recorded prophecy and was worried that it referred to him,” Devon said. “Perhaps the Dark One you discovered in the in-between world resembled him because it was him.”
Nava shook her head. Devon could go and cram his negativity where the sun didn’t shine. While she’d been caught by surprise the night before, the answer was clear as day right now.
There was no chance the shadow man and Arkimedes could be the same person.
“It might have been, but it wasn’t.” Arkimedes’s tone was stern.
“How do you know?” Devon drummed his fingers against the tabletop. “You were worried weeks ago. We don’t understand how time works in the shadow realm. Perhaps you could be in two places simultaneously.”
Arkimedes shrugged off his royal coat and tossed it carelessly onto the table. “Because I’d rather die than hurt Nava, and because my power doesn’t leave these marks.”
And he pulled the shirt out of his pants, revealing his abdomen to both Devon and her. His golden skin wrapped over cords of muscle, but that wasn’t what sucked the breath straight from her lungs. The black veins that snaked up his back and over his ribs were a terrible sight to behold. She rose so abruptly from her chair that it crashed to the ground. Then she ran her fingers over the lightning-shaped marks left behind by the Dark Ones.
“My father’s concubines left these markings last night when they ambushed me. I will get better in a couple of days as my body recuperates.” He wrapped one of his large hands over hers, pressing it into his skin. “A Dark One’s power leaves blackened veins behind, but mine doesn't. If it had been me, I would have killed Nava, and a part of her soul would haunt me for the rest of my life.”
And since they were soulmates, it would be a very short-lived life, since neither could survive for long without the other.
“I can’t take just the essence of someone’s magic, like most of my kind. My power rips a soul apart, steals bits of a person’s essence. Only my father and I possess the ability to do that in this world.”
Devon settled in his chair, evidently appeased by Arkimedes’s explanation. “All right. Who was the Dark One, then? A lost twin brother or a shapeshifting demon?”
Nava’s breath caught in her throat, and her blood ran cold at the very idea. There were other types of demons than the Zorren? “Do they exist?”
“They do.” Devon poured himself more wine. “The scriptures say they borrow the likeness of the one you love the most. But they aren’t from this world.” He shrugged and downed his drink in one gulp. “Nasty little things. It’s why I’m not recommending we open a portal and take this fight to whoever is doing this.”
“Maybe that’s what he wants. He seemed to move a lot faster than I could while in the shadow lands. I just floated, unable to do much.”
