Lifting his chin a fraction, Xariel shook off his moment of sorrow. “Because, as her son, and the son of a mage from your realm, you are a key. You can travel from one realm to the other without a portal.” He fixed his eerie gaze on Martin’s. “And no one can stop you.”
“You came to my realm.”
“But at great cost.”
“Those demons cross freely.”
“Don’t call them demons!” Xariel balled his hands into fists. “I know what that word means in your realm. The Dreckons are just people. Desperate people. Because they don’t look or act like you doesn’t make them lesser. Would you kill to feed your loved ones? To give them hope for a future?”
Martin said nothing. What could he say? He’d gladly kill this being for one more glimpse of Peter. “What do you want of me?”
“I do not know.”
Martin let out a disgusted snort. Figured. “Doesn’t sound like you have much of a plan.”
“The plan was to take you and use you to travel between realms.”
“Now?”
“Now that I see how powerful you are… Dmitri did tell you of your power, did he not?”
“He did. But I don’t see how he can say—”
“He’s taught you?”
“Some.”
“I can teach you more.”
“Why would you?” Martin gave in to the gnawing in his gut and sampled a bit of what looked and smelled like chicken. Tasty. The thing resembling a potato tasted vastly different but still filled his belly.
Xariel released a heavy breath. “Because I can’t kill Thomoth on my own.”
A memory surfaced of Mum telling Martin stories, how he’d admired the two heroes battling the evil Thomoth. He repeated his mother’s words. “There are always two.”
“There always have been. The last time two went against Thomoth, they failed. They failed their people, their realm, their families. But most of all, each other.”
“My mother told me of Thomoth. And the heroes. She said the creature followed them to my realm.” Martin remembered hanging in space, silently observing a thousand or more realms.
“It did. It used up ours. The strength of hundreds of mages created a portal to your world, at great cost to themselves. Our survivors fled.”
“You stayed.”
“I wouldn’t desert my homeland.”
“Even if you lost all else?”
Xariel let out a noisy breath. “Even if I lost all else. But come now, we waste time. You have lessons to learn beyond Dmitri’s understanding.”
Nothing came for free. “What will this training cost me?”
Xariel squatted, connecting his unnervingly pale gaze to Martin’s. “Possibly, your life.”
Martin sat in the middle of a circle of stones, wearing only a light, thin robe. A breeze ruffled his hair, but even the air seemed lackluster in this place. The enemy who could be a mentor sat across from him, similarly attired.
“Aren’t we wasting time? The city was under attack when I left.” Martin shouldn’t be sitting still. He needed to go back and fight. What of Peter? Or Enys’s endless family. Dmitri.
Cere.
