He chuckled, and Six’s tail twitched twice, like she hated the idea of it.
Run,Ezer thought towards her.Fly away from here.
But she knew Six would never leave her.
Even if it led to the raphon’s death.
‘I would have torn apart the entire realm to bring you home to me. When someone becomes the Acolyte … they are given great power. Beauty. Riches that run soul deep. I was granted the gift of shadows. A glorious display of unpillared power, for light cannot survive in true darkness.’
A pillar of shadow erupted from his hands, spiraling up into the sky, where the hole in the mountaintop lead to the shadowstorm.
Their protection from Lordach’s advances.
‘Now that you are here …’ He smiled at her, and she fought the urge to flinch. ‘All is right again. You arehome,Ezer. Where you were always meant to be.’
There was something behind his words that she couldn’t quite place. A danger. A promise.
‘You told Styerra you’d come for her that night in the Citadel. And instead, like a coward, you sent a godsdamned letter to break her heart. You were a coward, Erath. And you left her behind to die, with a baby in her womb.’
His shadows lunged towards her.
But a lifting of his hand, and they recoiled, settling upon his lap like a cat. He ran his fingertips across them as he spoke, ever the soothing master. ‘The truth tells so much more than speculation can. Stefon, an old friend of ours, was truly clever. I’ll give him that. But he took advantage of our trust. Mine and Styerra’s combined.’
‘What does that mean?’ Ezer asked.
He shrugged and looked into the crevasse. She could sense the power inside it.
She could sense, if she dared listen … a voice upon the wind.
Not her mother’s, for this voice was far away.
So far, she almost imagined she was hearing it sigh her name. And with it, a request.
A promise.
‘The past is unimportant. It is but a blink, a flash in the grand scheme of time now,’ the Acolyte said. ‘But to you, weak and human, I can sense the true story is still important. So, I’ll tell you this: Stefon visited me first in our dorms, before he visited Styerra that night. I can see so much more now, than I did back then. But you … for some reason, Ezer, I never sensedyou.’He sighed. ‘He came in a frenzy, a man shattered by grief. I held him while he wept at my feet, while he gathered the strength to tell me Styerra wasgone.He told me the Masters had captured her, ripped her from his grasp in the kitchens. He told me they killed her – the ultimate penance for her wrongs – and they were coming for me, too. So I fled. I went to the Aviary and took my eagle … and soared away from the Citadel, never to look back.’
A disgusting lie, her uncle had crafted. He’d ripped a family apart. He’d taken everything from them. Ezer, Styerra, even Erath, long ago.
Before he wasthis …this dark monster on a throne, caressed by shadows.
‘After that, I assume he fled with Styerra. He used her fear, her love foryou, to take her away fromme.’
The shadows began to swirl at his feet, angry as the storm far overhead.
‘I made it here. I discovered the Acolyte before me. And now …’
‘Whatareyou?’ Ezer asked.
‘I am the Acolyte, dear child. A voice for the voiceless. I am a host. A vessel, with Wrenwyn’s blood in my veins, and I am sworn to carry out the commands of the One until my time is done.’
‘You’re a murderer,’ Ezer said.
His shadows seemed tohiss, like snakes. But he held them back from her. ‘Your mind is still weak. Still young and mortal, and though you read the Tome … you still aren’t ready tosee.That final choice is yours, Ezer.’
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
Before her, that dark crevasse was still whispering.
