“This is Lina,” Viggo explained briskly. “She told us the Codex fragment the Helnweins possessed was the final key to unlocking the convergence.”
“There’s an eighth fragment, your Grace,” Fairbridge said in a hard voice. “The body of the Crimson Codex was apparently hidden inside the convergence by the First Archmage, here in this very building. And it seems that Winchester is trying to open it right now.”
Evander’s breath locked in his throat.
The Codex was divided into eight fragments?!
He blinked dazedly before recovering his composure, his mind racing. “It’s under the main chapel. Ginny overheard them talking.” He looked tensely at Solomon. “Can you get these people to safety? Rufus is making his way down the mountain with Ginny and Shaw as we speak.”
A shudder of relief shook Solomon. He nodded curtly. The group disappeared into the gloom, Lina bobbing her head gratefully at Evander as she passed him.
Evander turned and ran, Viggo and Fairbridge on his heels.
They stumbled and almost fell as the tremors worsened, slowing them down.
The chapel finally emerged from the monastery’s northern wing. It was a vaulted space that had once been beautiful but was now desecrated beyond recognition. Pews had been torn out and piled against the walls. The altar had been smashed, its sacred vessels scattered across the floor. And covering every surface—walls, floor, the remnants of stained-glass windows—were arcane symbols drawn in what looked horribly like dried blood.
But it was what lay behind the ruined altar that turned Evander’s blood to ice.
A hole had been carved into the floor, revealing stone steps that descended into darkness. From below came pulses of corrupt power and the unmistakable stench ofBlood Magic.
Evander started down the stairs with Viggo and Fairbridge.
The passage was narrow, forcing them to move in single file. The quaking walls pressed closer and the air soon grew thick and hot, carrying with it the copper tang of blood and something else—something so wrong it made his teeth ache and his skin crawl.
Evander reached for his magic and kept descending.
The stairs ended in a vast chamber that shouldn’t have been able to exist beneath the chapel. It was easily a hundred feet across, its ceiling shrouded in shadows. Torches burned atregular intervals around the perimeter, their shivering flames an unnatural red that cast everything in dancing shades of blood.
Evander’s gaze locked on the man in the middle of the chamber.
Mordecai Winchester was exactly as Richter had described; pale, gaunt, with burns scarring half his features in a grotesque mask. He stood inside a complex ritual circle, his arms raised and his face a mask of concentration. Dark energy swirled around him like a living thing from the arcane runes on the ground, feeding into a point of absolute blackness that hung in the air before him.
Evander stared at the fragments of parchment at the centre of the circle.
Das Blutbuch!
His heart stuttered when the inkiness above Winchester dissolved for a second and he saw what lay beyond.
It was something unreal. Something impossible.
A vast space filled with ethereal light and crackling energy, pieces of parchment and a torn book drifting like leaves in an invisible wind within it.
Evander knew he’d just caught a glimpse of the eighth fragment and main body of the Crimson Codex. From the enraptured expression that washed across Winchester’s face, the dark mage had seen it too.
Magic surged through Evander’s veins, the elements responding to his will with a power that made his very bones throb.
“Stop!” he roared.
Winchester’s head snapped down. Evander flinched.
The dark mage’s eyes glowed with an inner light that had nothing to do with humanity. Instead, they burned with the fervour of a zealot who’d found his promised land.
“Duke Ravenwood,” he sneered, his voice carrying across the chamber despite the howling dark energy and the groaning building above them. “I wondered when you’d find this place. My master will be so pleased.”
The shadows along the walls shifted. Dark mages emerged from swirling clouds of darkness around the chamber’s edge. There were half a dozen of them, their hands already wreathed in corrupt power.
“Kill the other two,” Winchester commanded, his attention flicking dismissively to Viggo and Fairbridge before fixing on Evander. “Take the Archmage prisoner.”
