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A handsome man with wavy brown hair down to his shoulders and dark blue eyes.
I gasp as he’s revealed to me. “Ariman.”
The dark immortal priest—Kymaris’s most devoted follower—smiles as he undoes a clasp at his throat and lets the robes fall to the ground. Underneath he’s dressed in fashion typical of the Underworld—brown denim breeches and tunic with leather belt and boots. Things are simple down there.
What is not simple is the Blood Stone that he still wears on a chain around his neck.
“How did you get that?” I ask, and I hate how shaky my voice sounds.
His head dips and he stares at the gem that almost gave Kymaris and the Underworld victory over the First Dimension. Since her defeat, it’s been locked up with Carrick and Finley.
Or so I thought.
Ariman lifts a hand and hovers it over the jewel. It was originally a chunk of the meteor, fashioned into a gem and dipped into the Crimson River to increase its powers. There’s no telling what it can actually do.
He doesn’t touch it. Out of fear or respect, I’m not sure. Without looking up at me, he says, “It was my greatest piece of magic… stealing this beauty.”
Greatest piece of magic? I thought that would have been him pulling off a changeling ritual that funneled dark magic into me for twenty-eight years so Kymaris could travel to the First Dimension where she’d enact an apocalypse and take over the mortal realm.
But then again, that failed.
“How did you steal it?” I ask.
His gaze lifts to meet mine. “It’s all about timing. Making the most of it, really.”
Time is of the essence.That’s what the Scryer had said.
“Stop being cryptic and tell me how you did it!” I demand.
Ariman’s hand shoots out, and he grabs me by the front of my shirt, jerking me toward him. He lifts me to my toes and bends his head to sneer at me. “That’s not the question you should be worrying about, Zorasha. You should be fretting over what this stone can do now that I have it.”
My hands claw at his to loosen his grip, and I kick out with my booted feet. I’m as weak as a kitten, though, and he drops me to the ground, laughing.
“What did you do to me?” I gasp as I crab walk away from him. My back comes up against a stone wall, and my hand goes to the side of my neck where I can feel the puncture wounds. “What was that thing that bit me?”
“Do you know nothing of the history of the gods?”
I shake my head. “They’ve not told me anything. Just that they’ve always existed.”
“They don’t remember,” he sneers. “They’re so old and full of themselves, their origins are a mystery. They’ve forgotten more of their existence than they remember.”
“But you know?”
“I know more than anyone. I’ve studied all the old tomes and texts, used magics to delve into the past. I saw it all… they were created from the same energy that formed the universes. Gatekeepers as oversight. But as their egos got bigger, their minds have weakened and they’re shortsighted. Now they’re nothing but pitiful shells.”
“You’ve done something to them?”
“They got a little snake bite, same as you.” He laughs.
“What is that thing?”
“I call it Valshour, originally a heavenly creature that the angels used to subdue their one true God so they could oust Him.”
“It took away His powers?”
“Muted them. They thought it was for a long enough period they could enact their rebellion but He was mightier than they thought. When Kymaris was tossed out of Heaven and landed in the Underworld, she took one thing with her.”
“The snake,” I guess.
