Gathering Darkness

Slowly, he thought. Very slowly.

“Are we there yet?” Amara asked her brother, her usually honeyed voice edged with impatience.

“It won’t be much longer,” Ashur replied.

Magnus couldn’t help noticing that the carriage driver had chosen to take a meandering route to the temple after Ashur informed him of their destination. It had taken nearly twice as long to get there as it should have.

The dawdling ride gave him plenty of time to consider this unfortunate situation, but not enough to figure a way out of it.

He wished he’d seen Amara’s threat before now, but he’d been distracted by her beauty and refreshing bluntness. Certainly he couldn’t have been the first to make that mistake.

Cleo sat across from him in the carriage, her hands folded on her lap as she quietly gazed out of the window at the snowy landscape speeding past. On the surface, she was so serene, but he was certain a storm raged behind those eyes. There was no way Cleo would have let them kill Nic; he knew that. He didn’t even blame her for telling them about the temple while under such pressure.

Well, he blamed her a little. But what was done was done.

They finally reached the temple. Magnus stepped out of the carriage, then halted, shocked. An ice storm of a magnitude he’d never witnessed before had ravaged the place. Thick shards of ice protruded from the snow-covered ground. Bodies, some of which had been cut cleanly in half by the gargantuan blades of ice, were scattered everywhere. Blood, black as ink, stained the frosty ground.

Cleo looked around with horror. “What happened here?”

Amara surveyed the scene with her hands on her hips. “An elemental disaster, by the looks of it. I choose to think of this as merely a good sign that we’ve arrived at the right place.”

Magnus crouched next to a body, feeling the man’s throat to find it nearly frozen solid. It was enough to tell him this hadn’t just happened. At least an hour had passed since this man had died.

The skies were dark but cloudless, displaying nothing but the bright full moon to light the gory scene before them while the rest of Limeros slept.

“Shall we go inside?” Ashur asked briskly.

Magnus hesitated, and a guard shoved him forward. His hands itched for a weapon, but he’d been fully disarmed at Lady Sophia’s villa.

Walking inside, Magnus saw that the ice had also penetrated the temple walls. The floor was covered in a cold, crystal-clear layer, some of which had begun to melt.

The guard shoved him again as they moved down the aisle.

“Careful,” Magnus growled, “or I’ll make it a point to kill you first.”

The guard laughed. “We’ll see, boy.”

Boy? This lowly Kraeshian guard didn’t even bother to use his royal title. It was an insult beyond any other.

Magnus would definitely kill him first.

But Magnus all but forgot about the insolent guard when he noticed an alarming amount of blood pooled against the black granite floor by the altar at the front of the temple.

There were no bodies there, not even one. Only blood, lit by the eternal fire that continued to burn in the center of the temple.

His first troubled thought was of Lucia.

Where are you, sister?

“So we’re here,” Magnus said, forcing himself to sound calm and totally in control. “Welcome to the Temple of Valoria.”

Amara glanced around, unimpressed. “I’m sure it looked better before the storm.”

“Not especially.”

Cleo was hugging herself with her arms crossed in front of her, as if not even her heavy cloak could keep out the cold. She locked eyes with Magnus, who quickly looked away.

“Magnus,” Amara said, “you should take more pride your little homeland. My father has always said that Limerians are moral and very well behaved, for the most part. If nothing else, King Gaius has managed to successfully control his people through fear and intimidation.”

“Fear and intimidation are tactics that work very well on those who allow themselves to be afraid and intimidated.”

Ashur remained silent, allowing his sister to do the talking. He’d seemed much more disturbed than she had by the dead bodies outside.

“Nothing to say, Prince Ashur?” Magnus asked.

Ashur gave him a tight smile. “Not really. I’d prefer to observe for now.”

“That’s my brother.” Amara looked at him fondly. “An observer. A watcher. I always kid him that at any moment he’ll sprout feathers and fly away to join his friends in the Sanctuary.”

How painfully unamusing. “Anyway,” Magnus began, “this is where Lucia believes the water Kindred to be. Let’s start searching. This could take all night.”

All night was more than enough time to figure out a way to steal a weapon and lay waste to anyone who got in his way—starting with that insolent guard.

“Yes,” Cleo readily agreed with his ruse. “It’s like a delightful game of hide-and-seek.”

He almost laughed out loud at that. Yes, so delightful, this game.

“I have a better idea.” Amara nodded at a guard, who grabbed Cleo’s hand and sliced across her palm with a sharp dagger.

She shrieked, yanking her hand back from him.

Magnus fought the urge to break free and run to her. There were guards on either side of him and he knew they wouldn’t hesitate to cut his throat.

“We know about the blood ritual,” Amara said. “So please, don’t waste my time.”