Wrinkling my nose, I stepped closer and did as he asked, as did Zayn.
Both men had matching brands burned into the skin just below their jawlines—circles with thorn-wrapped swords cutting diagonally through their centers. Faint but unmistakable marks.
“…Fuck,” said Zayn.
“Order members,” I breathed. “Here?”
“They were killed in Tarnath, to be more specific,” Captain Voss said, and my heart clenched with fear for that royal city and the people within it. “A group of my patrolling soldiers found them in an alley near the eastern district just before dawn. They seemed suspicious, and turned violent when questioned—violence that led to, well,this.”
Bastian pulled the wall partially closed. It blocked some of the stench, but did little to stifle my magic and its interest in the dead energy drifting off the bodies.
“We have two thoughts,” my brother said. “Either they’re here for Aleks, if he truly is a wayward weapon of theirs… Or they’re here because they know we have two pieces of Lorien’s soul in our possession—that we are dangerously close to having both Vaeloran souls in one place, for better or worse.”
“Or for both reasons,” Thalia said grimly. She shook her head, clearly biting back several violent, choice words about that organization that had killed her father. “This shouldn’t have caught us by surprise. We already suspected that the Order is as tangled into all of our affairs as it’s possible to be.”
“Yes…” Eamon agreed slowly. “But most of their operations have been centered in the Above for so long, with some minor movements in Nerithys. All evidence suggests that this supposed ‘new world order’ that they’re trying to bring about would be in Soltaris, not here.”
“Because they assumed this realm was finished,” added Bastian. “And they left it for dead.”
Zayn huffed out a humorless laugh. “Well, the bastards assumed wrong, didn’t they? They’ll regret underestimating this realm.”
“I wish they hadcontinuedto underestimate us,” Thalia mumbled.
My brother frowned. “The questions I have now are: How long have they been operating in Noctaris? How many? And how deeply have they infiltrated and influenced this palace and the political happenings of our kingdoms?”
I stared through the partially open wall, at what I could still see of the dead. “I wonder how many of the arguments we’ve endured these past months were orchestrated by the Order?”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn they’ve been influencing some of the leaders who have opposed and questioned you,” my brother said. “A unified and revived Noctaris poses a greater threat, after all; the stronger you get, and the more allies you have, the more difficult it will be for them to destroy you.”
“So, that’s a third reason for them to show their ugly faces here.” Zayn clasped his hands behind his head and sighed. “Honestly kind of surprised they haven’t already descended on us in force.”
“That might be imminent,” said Thalia.
“It’s regrettable that these two ended up dead before we had a chance to force information out of them,” Voss said. “I’ve spoken to the ones who battled with them, as well as some of my more trusted soldiers; orders have been given to try and capture any other suspicious individuals alive.”
“All well and good,” said Eamon, “but we could also get at leastsomeinformation from the dead, could we not?” He gave me an expectant look.
I nodded, even as a cold sweat washed over me. “Let me see what I can divine.”
I nudged the wall open farther, bracing myself against the renewed assault of death’s stench. Everyone stood back except for Phantom, who insisted on staying close to my side, his form tense and protective as we both crept over and crouched by the corpses.
My hand shook only slightly as I moved it over the decaying men, focusing on the one adorned in finer clothing; he struck me as a higher-ranked member who would likely have more useful secrets.
Shadows dripped from my fingertips, pooling in the air above the corpse. I pressed those shadows down into the man’s chest, closing my eyes.
An explosion of images followed in rapid succession; it took me a minute to calm my racing pulse and the magic surging through me, to be able to clearly parse through the chaotic visions and find what I was looking for.
I saw the memory I needed through the eyes of the dead man himself—a meeting in a darkened room, where he seemed to be receiving orders. He wasn’t alone, either; at least a dozen others were circled around him, all of their eyes fixed on the hooded figure who stood at the back of the room.
The air was tense, rippling with a combination of suppressed fear and fanatical fervor.
“More are descending into this forsaken realm as we speak,” said the hooded man. “They’ll join the numbers we already have stationed in the shadows. It’s only a matter of time before we’ll be ready to move in earnest, and we’ll be expecting you all to be prepared…”
His voice sounded vaguely familiar.
Then he leaned into the light of the single candle burning on the table between them, partially revealing his features, and my chest tightened as I recognized him.
Cold, greyish-blue eyes. Dark hair streaked with silver. That man…he was the one who had led the attack on us in the Above.
