CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Morwyn.
—From Lyvia’s list.
Lines of blazing rubelline stone glowed red in the darkness that enveloped the lowest level of Mount Telum’s dungeon.
A cage surrounded the Stone Witch as she sat covered in her own filth and reeking like rotten flesh. Half her teeth were gone, and what could be seen of her arms and face were marbled with fresh scars. That scratchy, straw-like gray hair was cut short against her scalp, and her nose had been hacked off.
The Stone Witch’s violet eyes stayed fixed on me, and I felt a gentle tap once more.
“Hello, Death Digger, it’s time to pay. The debt you owe grows heavier each day.”
The stone-on-stone grinding of her voice was somehow more sickening as she spoke it with half her teeth. My gut twisted at her words, and Astraeus stiffened next to me.
Undo it for us, she’d said, all those months ago in Odessa.Undo his treasons. What had he done?Whohad done it?
I eyed the cage containing the powerful witch. Built with rubelline stone, or at least enough of it to render her powers somewhat null. She could still reach me, mind-to-mind, but she couldn’t speak to me. Was this what had drained Saros of so much power? He was strong, but he seemed weaker in the tower after his shield had fallen.
“I will,” I replied, still unsure what I had agreed to all those months ago. “After you tell me how to defeat Dark King Daimos.”
A soft chuckle gurgled from the other side of the bars.
“What you need is me,” she said, her pale, sickly gums peeking out from beneath her lips. “To help, I must be free.”
“You’ll help us defeat the dark king?” I asked.
“It’s my right to take his soul,” she hissed in the darkness, “for cursing me with the power he stole. He tricked the old king into protecting his home, for he knew I’d return to take back the throne.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked softly, the pieces of a complex puzzle slowly starting to come together. “Who are you?”
“The power of the seasons remembers well. Undo it now, and I need not tell,” she whispered.
A hand gripped my elbow, and I turned to face Astraeus, eyes narrowed in warning, “Don’t do this, Lyvia.”
“The Bonder has no choice,” the Stone Witch cackled from the other side of the cage. “She has a debt to pay, sworn with her mind’s voice.”
Astraeus stilled before turning toward the witch.
“You swore an oath to her, mind-to-mind?” he breathed, keeping his eyes on the witch.
My throat bobbed. “I made a deal with her at Odessa. She’d warned us the ashen were coming. And I needed to access my powers. I don’t know what she did, but I agreed toundo itfor her in exchange for her help.”
“How did she help you?” Astraeus’s eyes were as depthless as the night as he turned them back to me. The rubelline stone brightened the red in his dark hair and cast his skin in a crimson hue.
“I...” I stuttered, searching my memories. “I…I honestly don’t know. She said she’d send a sign from Aelius’s brow, and then…”
Astraeus palmed one of the two rubelline daggers he always wore as he angled himself between me and the witch.
“And then the Sending occurred,” he answered for me. “The moons crossed in front of the sun, creating a twin eclipse. The event that shouldn’t have taken place for another two years. Yet somehow…”
The Stone Witch cackled from across the chamber.
“Clever, clever pirate lord,” she whispered. “When he discovered it was gone, the good kingroared.”
“Discovered what was gone?” I asked.
“The Celestyn Bone,” Astraeus answered. “She had it. And she used it to manipulate the twin eclipse last spring.”
