The voice can’t point, but I know which one needs to be cut. It’s a tiny thing, but it screeches when I cut it. “Does it hurt?” I ask.
“Pain to remove something nefarious is not a bad thing. He was lying, you know?”
“Otavio? I’m sure of it.”
“He didn’t find you in an orphanage. He brought you from the Nowhere Lands, after he killed your parents.”
“You know who they were?”
“No. I can’t see that far. You might want to travel to the Nowhere Lands one day. You might find people who knew them. Or you might want to focus on your life here. What I can tell you is that he killed your parents, then brought you. I saw his heart. Only a Tiurian royal could unearth me, and it needed to be someone from the royal line who was recognized as a ruler. Once you became the queen of the Crystal Court, you were able to find me. Otavio wanted you to unearth me, and then he planned to steal my power, but he can’t really steal it, except for a short time. Still, he’s more dangerous than you think. He is the Witch King’s half-brother. They had the same Tiurian father, but different mothers.”
“So Otavio’s going to help him?”
“I don’t feel that. I think he might want to defeat him. The issue is that he doesn’t want to kill him.”
“Why?”
“He needs…”
The heart stops talking, and I catch my breath. Is it dead? I touch it, and sense its inner heart beating ever so slowly, as if it had fallen into a deep slumber.
Nelsin’s standing, looking at me.
“Did you hear it?” I ask.
“Yes. She spoke to me too, told me to hide.”
I smile at him. “You saved my life. But we need to go.”
He smirks. “I’ll get you home or Marlak will scalp me.”
“You know he won’t.”
I head to the door and try to open it, but it doesn’t budge. It’s locked. Nelsin uses water magic on it, and it bursts open.
Outside, there’s only darkness. I create a ball of light, but it doesn’t illuminate ahead. When I’m about to step out, Nelsin places a hand in front of me.
“Don’t.” He points downward, below the glass floor. Everything is dark as well.
“What does it mean?” I ask.
His forehead wrinkles as he looks thoughtful. “Some strange magic. Nothingness. Perhaps… he used his Tiurian magic to imprison us.”
“In this room? The transcending circle is still in this castle, just in another room.”
Nelsin shakes his head. “There’s no way to get there, and if we try, we might die.”
“Is there a way for us to escape?”
His eyes are wide, and his top ears are folded down. “Not that I know of.”
“The heart. It might have the answer.”
“When it awakes, yes.”
“We wait, then.”
“Sure.” Something about his voice doesn’t sound right.
