As Sylas went to object, Ambrose told us, “Just before Ruxnoth hit, I snagged Winter’s arm intending to tag him as a precaution. Ruxnoth sensed it and stopped me. But as I was briefly connected, I determined another source that had tagged him.”
“Ruxnoth is concealing himself, Winter, and those necromancers—their scents and magical signatures,” Ketheron spoke. “Even Remnant couldn’t obtain a lock via blood tracking.”
“This is something altogether different. And due to it belonging to a species that has spent centuries living in secret, that still hides the full breadth of its people’s abilities, it’s not widely known.” He looked at me. “Do you know what I speak of?”
“Vibrational tracking.”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “He was tagged with a vibrational leash by Vaxan Canor.”
3
~Winter~
Cold.
I was too cold.
A chill permeated my veins.
I didn’t get cold.
There was nothing but blackness as I scanned my surroundings—as much as I could while I felt myself bound to the spot, my boots entrenched in something I couldn’t make out, my body confined by some sort of restraints. They were wrapped around either leg and buried in whatever my boots were. Another set forced my arms down by my sides, all over my body. That was where the coldness was coming from. The binds. I could feel them against the bare skin of my chest, but pushing against my jeans. So I was shirtless, but clothed beneath, and still wearing my boots. And I could move my head.
The nothingness all around me, I would have attributed to me being dead if it weren’t for two things.
One. I couldn’t die.
Two. I knew what the Valley of the Dead was like inside. Mom and Dad had taken me there through astral projection,claiming that as both Wraith and Necromancer, it was important I understood the foundational elements of death apparatus.
So this was just… a prison?
“Do you wish to be warmed, sweet youngling?”
I jolted at that booming voice with the rich smoothness, reverberating off the blackness.
A voice I recognized from earlier.
Ruxnoth.
He’d done something to me when he’d teleported us away as I’d heard Dad screaming out for me—and laying down some heavy-handed threats. Well, what were definitely promises actually from him.
“What… what’s happening?” I asked, swinging my head from side to side, my teeth chattering as I uttered the words.
“Merely a civil discussion. One I have waited a long while for. Longer than I intended due to you being confined in your family home beyond what should have been acceptable. Now as a result you are lagging behind where you should be. Where I need you to be. This is the first step of me remedying that.”
“You… you’re saying you brought me here to… train me?”
“To unlock your true power. Power you have denied yourself through fear that does not belong to you.”
A shudder rolled through me. Not courtesy of the cold this time.
“Show yourself. I can’t fight you off if I can’t see you.”
A sadistic chuckle reverberated around me. “As much as I wished that was you actually talking, that is most definitely Sylas.”
“Everyone thinks they know him, but they don’t.”
“As they all believe they know you? What a severe threat your very existence is to them all? Why they take such horrific precautions against you?”
