‘That’s all?’ I mutter caustically.
He grins and shrugs. ‘Aye. I will feed her well, pleasure her. You will teach her your trade. We will keep her safe and show her we are worthy of her trust. She will choose us.’
I let out a sigh. ‘You make it sound very easy.’
‘It is. Now, she doesn’t like being kept in the dark. Show her the note and tell her what’s going to happen on the morrow. I will allow you that.’
‘My thanks,’ I say sarcastically. ‘You will make a hearty meal for her this evening, and for the morning meal before she goes?’
He looks at me like I’m a simpleton. ‘Of course!’
He turns away with a derisive noise in my general direction and starts trudging down the thoroughfare toward our cottage. I go back inside with the parchment and take a deep breath as I enter the healer’s rooms.
‘You were gone awhile. Who was it?’ she asks absently.
I show her the note. ‘Morgan just brought it.’
‘What does it say?’ she asks, but the color is already draining from her cheeks.
She knows what it must be about.
‘The training will take place here. They won’t allow you in the Underhill, not even for that.’ I sneer the parchment even though I’m glad Dane was right and she won’t have to leave the Light for it.
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow morning. We’ll meet them by the Hall and you’ll train with them all day. In the evening, they’ll bring you back there and one of us will retrieve you.’
She nods a little shakily. ‘Does it say how many days or weeks?’
‘No,’ I answer. ‘It’ll go on until the mission happens, I expect.’
‘When will that be?’
I sigh, wishing I had more to give her. ‘I don’t know, Bryn.’
CHAPTER 8
BRYN
This dream is different from the others. Where there was the white room, there’s now a dark, gray, and desolate landscape full of jagged boulders. The rock here is all the same color. The sky itself is a dull gray, uniform and solid, but there are no clouds. At first glance, even at the second, it’s a lifeless place, even more so than that barren world where The Barrack was, but there are flashes of gold climbing out from the cracks between the stones. Yellow flowers. This place isn’t as dead as it seemed at first.
There’s a gravelly path in front of me. I walk down it slowly. The rocks beneath my feet are the same as the others all around me, but thin and sharp like worked flint.
I walk for a time, and I come to what appears to be a great flat expanse. It's black as obsidian and smooth as glass in stark contrast to everything else. Is it a lake or a great piece of rock that's been embedded into the ground? I can’t tell.
I approach it, keeping my eyes open in case there’sanything elsealive here, and I pick up one of the shards of rock at my feet.
As I gaze around, I understand down to the core of my being that this place is firmly in the Dark Realms. A far-offfeeling of panic emerges within me, that I'm back here, in these dangerous worlds again, but it's quickly muted as if it doesn't matter in the least. In some far corner of my mind, I know it doesn’t make sense, but…I’m drawn to the vast blackness in front of me.
I go closer still, intending to throw the rock I’ve picked up, to see if the surface is water, stone, or something else.
'You mustn't touch the Black Lake!' someone hisses from behind me, and I whirl around.
It’s the man from my other dreams, I realize. His light brown hair curling around his shoulders, his robes still white, looking almost luminous in this gray place.
I should be afraid, or at least surprised that he’s here. But I’m not. I just turn back.The Black Lake.He comes to stand next to me, staring out at it with me. He puts his hand on my shoulder.
'Must never disturb the surface of the lake,' he says.
