“So this one is more proof that Calistadiduse extremely powerful magic in this palace?” Aleks asked.
“Seems like it.”
I studied it more closely. Its limbs, unnaturally thin and oddly jointed. Its skin, a ghastly shade of grey and hanging too loosely in too many places. Its face, hidden in shadow and by the tilt of its head… From this angle, I could just make out a mouth hanging open, frozen with sharp rows of teeth on display.
It didn’t look like a divine being.
It looked like a monster.
And, not for the first time since I’d learned of the curse on Lorien, I found myself wondering about the motivations and consequences of what Calista had done.
“If it’s a by-product of the spell Calista used against Lorien, then it likely knew details about it,” I said.
Aleks cast an uneasy look at the doorway. “Which may be why someone trapped it behind these walls and left it to die. Someone didn’t want that curse undone. Our mysterious Order friends, I’m guessing?”
“My thoughts as well,” Eamon agreed, grimly.
It took me only a moment to decide what to do next. “I want to try and read its memories.”
A ripple of uncertainty swept through the others, but I remained insistent.
“It shouldn’t be difficult, right?” I said. “It isn’t as though it has a lifetime of complicated thoughts to sort through. And if it’s truly a living embodiment—well,wasa living embodiment—of the very curse we’re trying to make sense of, then I have to try.”
No one managed to come up with a convincing argument against this.
“…Be careful,” said Aleks.
“I always am,” I replied.
He let out a quiet, disagreeing laugh at this before gently weaving a spiral of light around me.
With his protective warmth pressing against my body, I closed the remaining space between me and the sentier’s corpse.
The rest of the room seemed to fade away until it was only me and that bundle of white robes and ghastly limbs. Me and the air that seemed to be growing colder by the second. Me and the pungent taste of ash and salt that suddenly coated my tongue…
I placed a hand on the creature’s long neck.
Somehow, I kept my arm steady, even though touching the sentier was like plunging my hand into a bucket of icy water. My fingers went numb. The sensation slowly swept up to my head, threatening to freeze away my thoughts.
The warmth of Aleksander’s magic became a distant memory.
Steady, I commanded myself and my shadows, which were starting to bloom beneath the surface of my skin.
Just before I attempted to delve into the sentier’s memories, a sudden, twisting pressure closed around my heart and lungs. Then released. Then grabbed again. It was as if I held one end of a rope, and something else was swiping at the other, desperately trying to get a firm grip on my magic.
The moment it truly latched on, my feet were nearly jerked out from under me by its sudden, violent hold.
“Let go.” The words trembled through my lips.
The pulling grew stronger, and I would have sworn I heard a whisper of a voice speaking into my thoughts. It said only one word?—
Mine.
This creature was the by-product of powerful necromancy; was some part of it still clinging to existence, desperate for more Shadow magic to feed it?
Did it have my magic confused with Calista’s?
The air around me felt like it was closing in.
