Page 5 of Dragon’s Rogue

Black light emanated from the statue and surrounded the card. Blaze jerked her hand back, then laid the card on the table, handling it as if it were a tarantula or a scorpion. The man’s likeness shimmered like smoke, bulging as if his face were misshapen, and then regaining its form.

Zane, crouched on the ground, saw gray-black fog billowing slowly down from the statue, through the tabletop, gathering on the floor near Blaze’s feet. It looked evil; he could imagine the cold, oily feel of it as if it were touching his skin.

Was she conjuring it on purpose? Did she even know it was there?

The cloud of fog slowly grew bigger, its edges roiling like storm clouds. Zane stifled the urge to call out to Blaze and warn her.

She picked up the second card, taking a deep breath, and then repeated the ritual.

Another man’s head and shoulders formed in the air. It was…

It was Zane.

He caught his breath. Holy hell.

She gazed at the image of him, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Did she recognize him? Had she seen him in her dreams, the way he’d seen her?

The urge to call out to her grew overwhelming—the need to meet her in the flesh. To touch her.

His hand moved toward the glass, instinctively reaching for her.

Then he heard the whispering.

Like the murmur of a voice just below the threshold of hearing, but saying something important. Something he needed to hear. He strained, but he couldn’t quite make out the words.

Blaze moved the card, with his image hovering over it, toward the golden idol in the middle of the circle. Everything in him recoiled. He did not want any part of him to touch that statuette, not even his image.

He bent his will toward the image, willing it away from the idol. He saw Blaze’s hand slow down, and then go still. She frowned, straining against his resistance. Then her brow furrowed in determination.

For a few moments their wills locked—her trying to push the card toward the statue, and Zane trying to keep it away. Her hand began to shake.

Then, without warning, the card burst into flames in her hand. Zane felt the searing heat in his own hand, and without thinking, he tried to draw the fire into his body as if he could keep her from getting burned. Blaze dropped the card with an exclamation. It fluttered to the floor on the far side of the table, outside the protective circle.

Blaze bent over, reaching towards it, and a tendril of black fog snaked toward her from under the table, blindly seeking her flesh. With a gasp she shoved herself backwards, knocking over the chair.

Pointing at the statue, she shouted three words of power. White light flared around her. The fog under the table churned for a minute, as if trying to push forward, but then finally began to recede.

At the sound of Blaze’s voice, Tyr strode over and used his power to move the curtains a bit further apart, standing over Zane to peer into the room. He was just in time to see the black fog draw into itself and up through the table, disappearing into the idol.

“What the hell just happened?” Tyr murmured. Zane shook his head, unable to tear his eyes away from the scene in front of him. His beautiful sorceress was messing with something way beyond her pay grade.

She stood gazing at the idol, breathing heavily, her hands still partially extended as if she expected it to attack her once more. It was all Zane could do not to stride into the room and wrap his arms around her to offer her support. Power. Whatever she would take from him.

Which was crazy. He didn’t know who she was or what she was up to.

Except he felt like he did know her—inside, where it really mattered. She was his dream woman, the woman he’d been waiting to meet for a century, and she was a creature of love and beauty and light.

After waiting another minute, Blaze approached the table. With angry, brittle movements, she wrapped the gold statue in white embroidered silk and put it away in a black velvet bag covered with silver runes. She put the whole thing in a carved wooden box and closed the lid firmly. He could see her exhale in relief when it was finally shut away.

What was she doing with a thing like that?

Blaze dismantled the circle of protection, erasing the runes, blowing out the candles, brushing the salt off the table into a bowl, gathering up the stones and straightening the deck of Tarot cards.

He could see her moving slowly, deliberately, but every now and then her hands shook, betraying her state of mind. When everything was cleaned up and put away, she picked up the carved box and left the room, turning the lights off behind her.

There was silence for a moment. Then Tyr murmured, “That looked like some dark, dark witchcraft, bro. Any idea what she was doing?”

“No clue. Not our business, though. Our business is the Seal.” He was lying. It was his business. He needed to know. What was the idol’s purpose? Why had she conjured an image of Zane, and who was the other man? No one he recognized.