“Careful, now. You’re not supposed to fall for me.” I could hear the teasing in his voice, and it didn’t sound at all like I thought it would for a deadly apprentice.
I pushed against his chest, causing him to fall backwards and land on his bottom in the boat. I lifted my skirt and stepped into the water in my rush to get far away from him.
I adjusted my mask and found myself standing next to Willa. She frowned and looked behind me at the man who was fumbling in the boat.
“You sure got the cream of the crop tonight,” she said worriedly. “I hope he doesn’t have two left feet.”
I had sworn to not speak, but I couldn’t help myself. “I think it’s not his feet I have to worry about. It’s his mouth that won’t shut up.”
Willa winced and reached up to grasp the hand of her escort, who led her through the woods, but this time, as soon as she stepped off the path, she was swallowed up by an inky, black mist.
I stared at the miasma and reached out to touch it, and it felt cold, but there was something familiar about it. I tried to step into it, but was met with a solid wall. I tried to push, but again, it fought my entry.
My heart raced as I watched all the princesses disappear through the mist, and I was left standing alone.
“No,” I gasped, reaching my hands out and feeling along the black wall, unable to penetrate the magic. I was left behind.
A fumbling came from behind, and I turned to see my escort wringing out his cloak from the water.
“Thanks for waiting for me. Oh, that’s right. You don’t have a choice.” My escort held out his arm, and I stared at it, not wanting to touch him, but I knew I needed his help to get through.
I laid my hand across the top of his hand, and he walked forward without giving me any sign of his intention. The blackness swallowed me, and I felt a cold trickle cover my whole body. I tilted my head back and let the magic course through me. I knew this feeling. It was a protective magic, like the veil in the northern realm. It was used to conceal and protect an area.
But the north’s magic was warm and full of sunshine. This magic was cold, like ice in my veins, and I almost liked the pain of it more than the northern’s gentle touch.
Then we were through, and I felt the coldness leave my body, and I longed to step back into its icy grasp.
Ruins surrounded us. Pillars broken and destroyed, overgrown with moss and clover. Stone steps, cracked and broken, as if the earth rebelled and tried to push them upward. Even the trees that had overrun the ruins were twisted and grew at odd angles.
Was this the sacred hollow of Thornhaven? The farther through the ruins we traveled, the more I believed it was. But where were the guards? Why were we walking right to the hollow?
My escort looked at my arms hanging by my side, and then up the row of princesses, and their arms were still interlocked with their escorts.
He reached for my arm and tucked it into the crook of his. I tried to pull it away, but he pressed his arm against his ribcage, trapping my arm in a pressure lock.
“Don’t be difficult, Princess. I’m trying my hardest to make a good impression.”
“Well, try harder,” I hissed. “You’re hurting me.” I stopped walking and yanked my arm so hard that I almost punched myself in the face. His lips pinched together, and I knew he was holding back a laugh.
“Laugh, and I will gut you,” I seethed, and immediately covered my mouth with my hands. That was not princess-like at all, and I worried I had blown my cover.
But instead, my threat seemed to have been what my escort needed. The smile dropped from his face, and he stood tall, leaving his arm out and parallel, waiting for me to take it. I refused, and held my skirts and followed the other princesses, inwardly fuming. I couldn’t care less who he was trying to impress. I didn’t want to touch that man, or have him touch me, ever again. I wanted nothing more than to find a way to sever his arm. A man didn’t need two arms, did he?
My thoughts turned dark as I found myself dreaming of ways to punish the sorcerer by my side. I didn’t care how charming he was trying to act. He and his kind were causing problems all over the seven kingdoms. And I hoped that tonight I would get the answers I needed. Maybe I could torture a few of them and get the truth?
I couldn’t hide my malicious grin as the princesses and their escorts headed into the open courtyard, and every ten feet or so was another enormous, detailed painting that hung between two pillars. I slowed and stared at the paintings, and the lifelike detail that was put into each one. None of them contained people. They were all landscapes.
One was a beach with aquamarine waters and a waterfall. Behind the waterfall was the barest hint of a sandstone palace, and I recognized it from my mother’s mirror when she would scry on the other kingdoms. It was the southern beach in the kingdom of Isla. Another painting depicted a snowy range at the base of a very familiar mountain that led into the mines of Ter Dell in Kiln. The third painting was just outside the capital city of Thressia in Candor. One painting caused my heart to flutter as I saw the inner court of the Northern Woods. The stone dais, the natural raised grassy platforms, and the circle of willow trees, but the painting had a giant rip, as if it was torn and then repaired sloppily.
My stomach roiled, and hard knots hit my gut as I turned around and looked at the painting directly across from the elven inner court. It was a painting of a familiar grassy field.
It was the exact spot where I’d woken up after the attack, but this painting included the remains of the hellhounds.
When I jumped through the veil of magic in the Northern Woods, did I enter this room and somehow knock the sorcerer and his demon hounds backwards and into another picture? Is that how I ended up in a field in the middle of nowhere?
I counted the paintings. There were at least twenty-seven in all that linked to key points in the seven kingdoms.
Some paintings were smaller than the others, and they were locations just outside of small villages. I recognized the town as where the first rumors of the son of Allemar appeared. As I walked the room, I could match up each of the paintings with an attack linked to Saphira’s map.
My mouth went dry. The expanse of their reach, and the amount of magic needed to funnel into each painting to create a portal was intimidating.
“Greetings, my apprentices.” A voice echoed off the marble walls. “You have been faithful in your attendance, and you shall all be greatly rewarded, but our work is not yet done.”
Everyone in the hall turned their focus on the upper balcony that overlooked the twenty-four of us. There wasn’t anyone standing on the balcony, but I could see a plush velvet red curtain and it moved, signaling that the speaker was behind it. This was it. The person I had been hunting for. I stepped away from my escort, but a hand reached out and grabbed mine, keeping me close by. I tried to pull my hand away, but I was getting strange looks from the other escorts.
“In three days’ time, we will be ready for the final battle. We won’t let what happened in the Northern Woods deter us. That was a fluke. Our armies have grown in numbers, and we are ready. So tonight, my disciples, I bid you to once again give yourselves for our cause so we can grow in strength and defeat our enemies.”
A faint clattering of applause followed, and a long-gloved hand slipped between the curtain and pointed toward an archway on my left. I could see steps that led to a beautiful black circular dais, which gleamed like it was made of onyx.