The two of them would be taking the cautious route as well. They were still searching out entry points into Sanctus. Iknew from Dad when we’d been training and I’d brought it up, that their spell had worked, but Ruxnoth had employed some fuckery. Basically, their spell had registered over two hundred possible entry points. They’d had to go through them one by one. Last I’d heard, they’d made it through seventy and they’d all been falsities.
While that was being delayed, and with me now figuring all this out, there was time to bring this to Ketheron.
A sudden wave of lightheadedness took me over, and I crashed into the wall, grunting.
Instinctively, I called my necromantic power and it—stopped it all instantly. The shuddering, the all-consuming cold, the lightheadedness.
What the—
No.
He hadn’t.
That motherfucker.
He’d threatened me in that dreamscape, and this was obviously part of that. He’d added new symptoms to the withdrawal effects of the living warmth denial—the lightheadedness, for example. He was making it where it was harder and harder for me to function. But calling my necromantic power just then had immediately stopped the new effect he’d added. I mean, that nasty cold was still there regardless, so I wasn’t exactly out of the woods, but I could still function through that. Anything more, though… not so much.
He knew I couldn’t be calling mass amounts of my power in front of others. It would… scare them.Son of a bitch!He was forcing my hand this way, trying to bring that terror others had of me to my door.
I gritted my teeth and pulled my power back.
With a shaking hand, I eased my phone from my hoodie pocket and fired off a text to Ketheron.
Winter:Can we meet? Need your help with a spell for Grimoire Creation class. It’s got a Celestial element and I want to be extra careful with it.
I winced at that. Having to lie. But I needed the meeting to occur without oversight or interference from others. Once I reached him, I’d tell him the whole deal. But I had to be safe with arranging it.
I noted there were a slew of texts and calls from my loves. Likely looking to set our plans for tonight. I’d had my phone on silent, as was the norm when conducting a Ruminat anyway. I was just about to start reading through them, when a knock at the door of the hut startled me.
What was going on?
People didn’t interrupt Ruminats in progress.
I pocketed my phone and headed for the door.
One step in, and a sudden weakness in my limbs afflicted me. It had me smacking into the wall again. Fucking Ruxnoth. I’d been right—this was exactly what he was doing.
I called my power to one palm, letting it surge for a few seconds, just to will away the nastiness, so I could at least appear fine to whoever was outside.
With a grunt, I reabsorbed it, then made it to the door and opened it.
My breath caught in my throat.
This wasn’t good.
Because there stood Grandpa.
Given the fact that his agents of The Shadowed were keeping an eye on me, protecting me but very covertly, and yet here he was, their leader, the greatRemnant…shit.
I cleared my now slightly dry throat. “Grandpa, what is… what are you doing here?”
Hold on.
He was standing there without a film of magic shielding him from the sun. He had his metal face mask concealing his identity as usual for whenever he was out in public, and the robe, hood up and all, but… he stepped to the side a little, his broad form no longer blocking my full view of the campus grounds outside… and then I saw it was dark now.
No. That couldn’t be.
I’d come here just an hour ago in the early afternoon. There’d been at least four hours to go until sundown.
