AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Hellfoxes!" he exploded, his eyes bulging.
"Yeah, it was a whole thing." I waved my hand. "We dealt with them."
Taj dropped to his knees and scanned my body, our bond alive with frantic worry. "You're fine?"
"I'm fine," I promised.
A rough breath puffed out of him, and he rested his rough forehead against mine. "Good. Because we've got problems."
"Worse problems than hellfoxes?" Ark demanded.
"Much, much worse."
16
Little ol' naïve me thought bigger problems would be a helldragon, or the church burning to the ground, or maybe an army of Terracotta Warriors lined up on the church steps. I stayed on my guard, fire flickering at my fingertips as I scanned the dozen little alcoves that led away from the nave we entered.
"There aren't any traps," Taj said sourly.
I gave him a sharp look before resuming my vigilant watch of the church. It was built of aged brown brick, the walls hewn out of massive stone blocks and arching columns holding up the roof. Pretty—but I knew there were snares lying in wait.
"Why do you sound disappointed?" Arkan huffed.
"You'll see why," Taj muttered, shoving his way past a pew and grazing the back of his knuckles down my spine. He caught a sore spot, but I bit my tongue and didn't let it show.
"Why isn't this place covered in traps?" I asked suspiciously as we walked deeper into the church, unhindered.
"It will have been," Taj spat, crossing bulging arms over his chest. "Originally."
Ark and I exchanged a look.
"Explain," I demanded, hurrying after Taj through the transept and giving every shadow and crevice a wary stare.
"No need," Taj threw over his shoulder, his posture getting more tense with every second. "See for yourself."
He waved his arm in dramatic fashion, a thunderous scowl on his face as he stopped in front of a podium with an empty chest.
"What am I looking at?" I asked, glancing from the gilded, jewel-encrusted chest to Taj. "Is it full of curses?"
"It's full ofnothing,"he snarled, fire pouring from his nostrils, "because someone beat us to it. This is where my dad hid the sceptre."
Ark peered over my shoulder, his eyes narrowed on the empty velvet cushion inside the chest. He said what we were all thinking.
"It's gone."
17
"I'm telling you," I growled for the ninth time since we found the empty chest, "Eidolon wasn't there. I'd have sensed him; I know the sickly feeling he leaves in the air."
"You didn't know he was at the training hall," Arkan pointed out, steadying me as I adjusted to being on two feet instead of falling through shadows and nothingness. He'd brought us back to the grassy slope in front of Dev's castle. He'd brought us home.
Part of me was desperate to run up the hill and inside the gates, to find Dev and see if he'd woken. The rest of me dreaded getting there and finding him dead.
"Thatplace was soaked in so many disgusting scents and energies," I threw back, giving Taj a pleading look for backup. "I wouldn’t have smelled a raccoon on a trash heist."
"To be fair," Taj muttered, "if Eidolon had been back there, wouldn't he have massacred the Thenawist demons just for the hell of it?"
"Not if he didn't know they were there," Arkan disagreed, which was annoyingly true.
