“But … how can that be?”They were demigods, for fuck’s sake.The direct descendants of the Fuerin.
“The Razer sees no opponent he doesn’t believe he can obliterate.You cannot become his next target.”
“I won’t.I’ll get him before he knows I’m coming for him.”
Rafaela pursed her lips again before saying, “As much as you’ve given me reason to be confident in your skills over the years, you haven’t properly absorbed the degree of threat Alobaz poses to you should you draw his attention.”
“How could she?”Alonso said.“Everything is so different now.”
“Then tell me how,” I said.“The parvnit?All the strange creatures I saw on my way here?”
“About a century after you were taken, a little less than that, a fae was born whose faithum allowed him to open portals to other worlds.”
I gasped.
“He traveled to many new places.”
“Like where?”
“A place called Faerie with a Golden Forest, and then the Mirror World, which is apparently an inverted version of Faerie.”
“An inverted version?What does that mean?”
“It’s too long to explain,” Rafaela said.“You’ll have to read some books on recent history before you go anywhere.”
“I’ll read while I travel to wherever Alobaz is,” I said, then asked Alonso: “What other places did he discover?”
“A great many.A Magical Creatures Academy that trains changelings.An entire new planetary system.On Planet Origins, sand is their most valuable resource, imagine that.Then a world where there are but very few fae and all the rest are human.”
“They must be so weak.”
“I’m certain they must be.This fae—his name was Isai—he returned with all kinds of strange artifacts and creatures.Until one day he vanished through a portal and never returned.We don’t know what happened to him.”
“Anything could have happened to him,” Rafaela said.“He traveled to unknown worlds with unknown dangers.I won’t let you make the same mistake with the Razer, Soravelle.Alonso and I know the dangers of confronting him all too well.”
Alonso released my hands and offered me a smile that drooped with melancholy.“But our world was already very different before Isai.Once Alobaz climbed onto Zaraga’s shores, nothing was ever the same again.”
“He ruined everything,” Rafaela spat.
“Then tell me where he is,” I said.“After I end him, he won’t ruin anything else ever again.Where did he kill Teo?”
Alonso glanced at Rafaela.
She glared.Shook her head.Finally threw up her hands in surrender, something I’d never seen her do before.
“He’s at CastleHawxfure.”
My brow furrowed.“Castle Hawxfure?Where’s that?”
“You know it, just by another name.It used to be the Abysmal Fortress.”
My mouth dropped open.
“That’s right.He stole even that from me.Castle Hawxfure”—she sneered—“was my home.”
Chapter16
The Infamous Princess, So Long Considered Dead
