Page 162 of Winds of Ruin
Larkspur
With salt dried to my cheeks and hope in my heart thatmaybemy mother wouldn’t kill me or my husband in the next twenty-four hours, I crept back to my bedchamber.
“My Papa says you’ll need to meet them before you can sneak into my room again,” I yelled into the washroom.
Dritan did not answer, but the shower ran.
If I were to meet the parents of my secretly wedded wife soon, I would procrastinate under the soothing pelt of water, too.
We’d get the awkward conversations out of the way. “Don’t hide in there all morning. We can still make it down to breakfast with them,” I called again.
Then, this afternoon, we would venture to the South Corridor, to Ikanten, where the Water Origin lurked in the cave depths. A shiver ran down my spine as I wondered what he wanted with Dritan.
The last relic.
Everything we’d sought for so long, right here.
Though we still did not know which direction Caym might strike from, for now, he remained contained in that mirror.
For how long?The intrusive thought whispered, and the hair on my neck stood, as if a breath grazed the back of it. I turned, expecting to see the Death Origin’s horrid sharp features.
Shaking off the shiver, I moved to my wardrobe and slipped on a tunic, then leather breeches with a thick matching vest. Hopefully, we’d gain more information today about what Dritan and I must do.
Pulling on socks and boots, I shouted through the door again, “Are you purposefully ignoring me?”
As I reached for where I’d left the carcanet on my vanity, my hand hovered in the air. The light oak top lay bare. My brow furrowed... I hadn’t moved it. I sometimes wiped it with a damp cloth in the washroom.
I glanced at the bench where Dritan had set the Sword of Isolde down the night prior. It was no longer on the blue tufted cushion.
“Dritan? Did you bring your sword in there?”
My heart pounded when no response came. I burst through the door to find the basin against the far wall running over. As I scanned the room, my hands shook.
A small pool of blood, collected on the floor, became diluted by the overflowing water.
The mirror that hung over the cabinet to my right was cracked, with only shards clinging to the top of the surface. Where some glass remained, a dark amber shadow receded into the pane, replaced by a message crudely painted in red.
You’ll be mine too.
Panic boiled over, and I screamed.
Chapter 61
Emmerick
The warm sheets tempted me to stay; the gorgeous nude woman with her arm draped over my chest, napping, melted away any aversion I’d previously had to beds. I could stay in this one all day.
Nothing that any Source Origin—Death included—could throw at me would keep me from coming back to her doorstep.
Before falling asleep, I’d told Elsedora the plan. Lark and Dritan had agreed to meet me in Helos around noon.
When I kissed El’s palm to wake her, ready to drag myself from our comfortable entanglement, her nose wrinkled in disagreement. “You plan to leave me already?” she asked; a faux pout nearly broke my resolve to go.
“Never for long,” I answered.
“Never,” she said. “I’m coming with you. Always.”
She wouldn’t care if it were too dangerous, regardless of any protest I made, so I simply smiled at the sentiment. By my side. Forever. Or as long as we had.
