A small boy stared out from it, maybe eight or nine years old, standing, and dressed in a stiff navy tunic and proper black shoes. Something about his eyes made my skin crawl. They tracked my movement as I stepped closer, too aware for painted features. He held a wooden toy soldier in one hand, and the other hung limply at his side.
I stepped around the chair to examine the picture closer, finding a key resting on the top of the frame. As I reached up to grab it, my palm hit the frame, and the right edge eased away from the wall. I brushed my fingers along the seam and tugged. The portrait swung toward me, revealing a round panel mounted in the wall.
A hidden compartment? This was looking good. I snagged the lip of the circle with my nails and pulled, but it didn’t budge. Irritated, I shoved it. A click echoed and the wooden door eased open.
Inside, I found a shallow recess lined with what looked like black velvet. But the surface shimmered. No, it wasn’t shimmering.Squirming.Grimacing, I leaned closer, studying the cluster of tiny, pale worms writhing in hypnotic patterns across the black surface. A few burrowed under the velvet and vanished.
A key lay among the mass on top.
“Could be it,” I whispered. Farris growled from beside me. “I’ll be careful.” He yipped.
I drew my dagger and carefully hooked its tip under the key, taking care not to touch anything else.
The instant the steel touched a worm, a bolt of magic ripped up the blade. Pain ripped up my arm and exploded from the back of my elbow. I dropped the dagger with a choked cry, clutching my arm while the bolt harmlessly smacked into the wall on the opposite side of the room and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Farris leaped up toward the compartment, snarling.
I patted his head, trying to soothe him while huffing about the pain in my elbow. “It’s alright.” A twist of my arm showed a circular burn mark on my sleeve and blistered skin below. Farris paced around me in tight circles.
The worms writhed faster, agitated.
A chill swept through the room that had nothing to do with drafts, and the image of Prager’s misty head appeared above the worms. If my elbow wasn’t screaming at me, I might find the energy to tell her that she appeared rather wormy right now, but that on her, it was a good look.
Her lips moved but no sound came out. I understood the words quite clearly, however.You’ll die soon, little queen. Very soon.
The image rippled, and she was gone, leaving only the worms thrashing around inside the small compartment.
Picking up my dagger, I sheathed it. Not touching the worms with my blade again.
I forced a breath past my teeth and flicked lightning toward the writhing mass. When it hit them, they devoured it. Sucked it in. And grew bigger, about twice the size they were before.
I released the lightning, worried if I didn’t, the worms would soon be larger than me.
They weren’t only guarding the key, they were feeding off anyone who tried to take it.
I tried nullification magic, but the worms weren't hiding anything to reveal. They were just hungry little guardians.
Alright, then. Shadows? I gathered magic, letting it build within me, and called to a few of the shadows I spied lurking in the room. They perked up and glided across the walls to hover below the compartment in an inky black mass.
“I need you,” I said softly. “Would any of you be willing to retrieve the key inside the compartment?”
Every shadow retreated except one. The final one whispered what it wanted.
My fear.
Well, I had plenty of that to share, and I quickly poured it out with the power.
How I’d felt watching Lore bleed on the cobblestones during the borgon attack.
The terror that I wouldn’t choose the right Farris inside the labyrinth.
My horror that there wasn’t time to grab the last talisman. Or if we did, that we wouldn’t be able to figure out how to fuse the three into one.
The shadow thickened, drawn to the taste, and I gave it more before it slithered up the wall and reached into the compartment, its tendrils slipping between worms without disturbing them.
It lifted the key and brought it out, laying it gently in my outstretched hand before slithering away.
Cold.
