AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Realization slams into me like a sickening punch to the gut.
“No,” I gasp. “It can’t be.”
“You don’t believe me? Let me prove it to you, Reyna. Let me show you who I truly am.”
Darkness gathers in his left hand. He rakes his fingers down his face and strips away the shadows.
“Lokriz.”
He melts into a cloud of dark magic. A phantom hand remains, keeping the dagger fixed to my throat. The shadows swirl, reshaping. His silhouette grows taller and a little broader. Then color returns to him. His golden waves become raven curls, and his emerald eyes become gray and dead. He wears the same deep blue doublet as before, but now an amulet hangs from his neck: an obsidian skull with an icy stone plummeting from its jawless mouth.
“Have you missed me, Reyna,” he says, his hand cupping my cheek, “as much as I have missed you?”
“You... I thought you were dead.” Tears well in my eyes. They escape and tumble down my cheek.
Arluin sweeps them away with his thumb. “Shh,” he murmurs, “don’t cry. Of course I’m not dead. I would never leave you.”
The tears freeze mid-flow. “No,” I blurt, “you can’t be him. Arluin... he would never hurt me.” My attention lowers to the gnarled dagger kissing my neck.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Reyna. But I must do what needs to be done—for us both. You will soon understand.”
I shake my head, the movement stiff and slow to avoid the blade nicking my skin. “Where’s Nolan? What did you do to him?”
My heart constricts with terror. I don’t know if he is Nolan or Arluin or someone else entirely.
“There never was a Nolan,” he replies. “Or at least not that you knew. I killed him months ago, long before I came to Nolderan. I knew your father would execute me on the spot, so I borrowed his face. I hoped you would still like it, even if it were not my own.”
I choke. The strangled noise escapes my throat.
This must be someone else. For him to say such things and so indifferently...
This is not the Arluin I remember.
His brows pinch together. “What’s the matter? You didn’t prefer him to me, did you?”
I don’t answer. I just stare at him.
“You must understand, Reyna, it was me all along. Me. Every word, every touch—it was all me.”
“It can’t be you,” I whisper. “It can’t be.”
“But it is me. Your eyes do not deceive you.”
I stare up at him, this man I have loved for so long. He looks just as I remember, except for his gray eyes: the mark of dark magic. I never dreamed we would be reunited like this, with a dagger pressed to my throat—
No. That’s a lie. There was a nightmare once, long ago. Where I witnessed him becoming his father. Becoming what he already is today.
Blue light flickers inside the jagged stone of his amulet, momentarily drawing my attention. When I glance back up at him, his eyes glow with the same formidable power.
All emotion vanishes from his face. His lips move, but he says no words.
I wonder whether he is preparing a spell, and I brace myself for whatever magic he will unleash. With the dagger against my throat, there will be no escape.
“Of course I will,” he growls, gripping his amulet and glaring at it. “Do you think me stupid?”
After a pause, he releases the amulet. Then he turns back to me, his eyes narrowing. He grips the hilt of the dagger more tightly.
“We are wasting time,” he hisses, his lip curling. Whereas before there was a chilling softness to his expression, now it is replaced with vicious cruelty. The icy glow remains in his eyes, turning them from dead gray to ghostly blue. “Tell your father to teleport here now. And tell him that if he does not come alone, then I will kill you before he can stop me.”
