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I hesitate.
“Are you in league with these necromancers? Were you sent to divert our attention while they are busy preparing an ambush?”
“Of course not!”
“Then how did you survive the massacre?”
Blood drums in my ears. Arluin spared me because for some reason, despite all his wickedness, he could not bear to kill me. I don’t know how to explain my relationship to Arluin, nor the part I played in Nolderan’s fall. And I suspect trying to explain any of it will only cause Lhorok to suspect my motives even more.
“I was out of the city when they attacked,” I lie, the words spilling from my mouth before I can think them through.
“Yet the way you speak of Nolderan’s destruction is like you witnessed it with your own eyes.”
I flinch and turn away. “That sounds like conjecture to me. You said that you would allow your king to evaluate the implications of your observations.”
Lhorok grunts in response.
Though I’ve evaded Lhorok’s questions for now, I will need to deal with King Agzol’s interrogation.
I heave out a breath. “We should head back to Gerazad. There is little time before the necromancers strike. Of that I am certain.”
Lhorok nods. “There are wards placed around the city, so you will be unable to teleport directly inside.”
“Should I direct my spell to the city’s gates?” I ask.
Lhorok pulls a medallion from around his neck, and the dark iron has been wrought into a circle with a thunderbolt and hammer carved into the center. From my studies at the Arcanium, I vaguely recall it as being the symbol of Jektar. “This will allow you to bypass the wards and teleport into King Agzol’s hall.”
I take the medallion from him and feel the same familiar yet foreign hum as I did when pressing my palm to a menhir in the Ring of Thunder. Aether tainted by a trace of dark magic. I hold out my staff, close my eyes and draw on all the surrounding magic.
Aether floods into my staff and my body far quicker than it did in Gerazad. I suppose that’s thanks to the Aether Tower humming high above. While my concentration is weary, I hope the abundance of magic will allow me to teleport back to Gerazad. If I misdirect this spell and we end up somewhere far from our intended destination, I’m not sure I’ll have the energy to teleport for a third time. By the time I’ve recovered, Gerazad may have long been defeated.
I clasp Lhorok’s shoulder and picture the Orc King’s hall as vividly as I can, envisioning the flickering amber light of the many braziers inside and feeling their warmth brush over my cheeks. The image of the hall grows clearer in my mind, until I can hear the air whispering across the tall walls.
“Laxus!”I call, releasing the spell over Lhorok and me.
Nolderan dematerializes, and then we’re racing through radiant purple clouds. Light blurs around us. It traces the outline of the Orc King’s hall, complete with his throne and many braziers. The silhouettes become concrete, stone and metal replacing the purple light.
The hall isn’t as we left it. King Agzol promised he would await our return, but the hall is entirely empty.
Well, almost entirely.
Natharius is sprawled across the Orc King’s iron throne, his head tilted back as he examines the ceiling above him with a bored expression. As we emerge from aether, his gaze trails down to the two of us. I also note that Zephyr is cowering behind the brazier to the left of the throne. My gut twists with dread.
Before I can demand to know what the Void Prince is doing on the Orc King’s throne, he speaks.
“Took you long enough,” he says, his tone too dark for my liking.
My stomach knots a little more. “Where is everyone?” I whirl around, searching the empty hall and hoping to find someone else. Yet I see no one. Not Taria, the twins, King Agzol, or any orc other than the one beside me.
Have we returned too late? Have we somehow spent so long inside Nolderan that Gerazad has already been destroyed?
Beyond the hall, the clanging of steel rings through the night. It sounds like swords striking bone and stone.
A shadow descends on Natharius’s angular face. “Your necromancers have arrived.”
thirty-seven
Myheartthundersinmy chest.
