She knew this place.
The chamber of the forgotten king.
The throne towered before her, massive and empty, carved from black stone that drank the light. It was a monolith in the dark chamber that drew in the shadows. Segrith waited at the base of its steps, cloak drifting like smoke. Sand and embershimmered around her feet as she turned to face her. From her open palms, white-red eyes glowed like dying stars.
Alora lifted the folded page. “Where did you get this?”
“It holds knowledge I once gave, and knowledge I since retrieved.”
“So youstoleit.”
“I am Segrith of the Sloth,” she said idly. An hourglass appeared above her open palms, red sand tumbling down. “I do not steal but collect knowledge like the grains of sand in an hourglass. A shifting tide, counting down to the inevitable.”
Alora’s shallow breaths carried in the heavy silence. “What does that mean?”
Segrith’s dark painted lips curved, her eerie eyes looking up at the sky. “A tempest is on the horizon.” The hourglass shifted into the scale. “Soon, the moon’s eye will turn, child. And the blood blooms will sing. He is coming.”
Alora’s heart raced, goosebumps prickling over her arms. Those were the same words written in her mother’s journal. “Who is coming?”
“The storm.”
“I don’t understand. What storm?”
Segrith drifted toward her with that eerie gaze, and her voice echoed through the chamber.“Vorak.”
The scale dipped under an invisible weight with a heavy clang, then disappeared.
A horrid chill sank through Alora’s being, and the humid air turned dreadfully cold.
“Who…is that?” she whispered.
“He who stirs where light can never reach. The great Devourer sealed away for all eternity, yet even eternity wavers.” The Lady of Sloth gave her a slow smile, bearing a sharp row of jagged teeth like black glass. Her palms turned and Alorafollowed their stare up to the massive throne. “When he wakes, even the gods will kneel.”
Her heart pounded loudly in her ears. Pure, inexplicable terror shook her heart.
Slinking up to her, Segrith drew in a deep breath, inhaled herfear, and cackled. “Delicious.”
Light burst beneath Alora’s skin, and Segrith hissed, recoiling. Alora seized her cloak, dragging her close until the demon’s ashen flesh blistered. “Spare me your riddles, demon. What do you know of my mother?”
Segrith shrieked, shutting her fists. “The light burns! I beg your mercy!”
Alora released her. The demon crumpled on the steps, patting her smoking cheek with trembling fingers.“Tetchy queen.”
Rage flared bright as the trapped light beneath her skin.
“Answer!”Alora’s voice thundered through the chamber, sending a ripple through the atmosphere. She inhaled a soft breath.
The power in her voice startled her.
It was more than compulsion but a force thatruled. The power trembled in her throat, and she shuddered at its echo.
“Your mother sought knowledge beyond the realms,” the Lady of Sloth replied, bowing back. “That page was the beginning. It holds a clue to a secret you will soon uncover, but it is not as dire as the secrets your master keeps.”
Alora stilled. “What secrets?”
“What came of your spindle?”
She blinked, recalling the strange crystal needle. “How is that connected?”
