CHAPTER THREE
Verrill didn’t stay much longer after that. He had to tend issues in the Shadow Realm if we were to meet tonight. After he shimmered out, I redressed and shimmered to the kitchen. I’d eaten everything on Magda’s snack tray and hunger still panged within me.
Or, at least I tried to shimmer to the kitchen.
Instead of the considerable workbench piled high with various foodstuffs in even more varying stages of preparedness, or the wall of ovens pumping out billowing plumes of yeast-scented steam, I stared at a great stonework well. Situated in the middle of a subterranean room, as evidenced by the packed dirt floor and walls full of twisted, knotted roots, the room held nothing except the well, glowing with a familiar golden light.
The light of the rune room and that of the runes etched on Jadzeera’s skin.
I’d shimmered to the Arcane Realm hold.
The seat of magic for this realm.
The power emanating from the well smacked into me in waves like a physical blow, thickening the air with magic until my skin burned with it. If it had arced and cracked in front of me like an electrical current, it wouldn’t have surprised me.
It pressed in around me, smothering, dangerous, and heavy and yet I approached the glittering golden light. Boots padding soundlessly on the hard dirt without my consent, I gripped the stones and peered over the edge into the bottomless depths.
The vision slammed into my head. No warning, no telltale blackness, just uncomfortable fullness and a large dose of vertigo as the images shoehorned themselves into my awareness.
Callum’s realm, the hallway tree—once so old and massive its limbs formed the structure of his hold, now a sapling, green and bending in the breeze. The scene cut to another realm, the jarring jump curling my fingers into the crumbling mortar, teeth clamped shut in protest of the blinding pain. Dark, placid water. No. Not water. An enormous mirror stretching the length of five or six men. Shadows swirled above the mirror like wraiths, twisting and dancing and colliding in a show of eerie aerial grace. Another nauseating jump-cut to a different realm. A grotto with tiers of waterfalls, each feeding the next and catching sunlight, painting jewel-toned rainbows across the whole lagoon.
Panting and groaning, heart throwing itself into my throat with each beat, I held onto the side of the well as the next realm crashed into my head. There was no question which realm this was. A lake of red-black water boiled behind my eyes. The bubbles popped slowly, rising then falling to join the rest of the liquid with too much weight, too much viscosity to be water.
No. Not water.
A great pool of blood.
The hold for the Blood Realm.
The burbling quickened, bubbles growing larger and popping harder until the entire lake boiled, throwing enough heat to warm my face, along with sizzling spatters of blood. But the vision refused to release me. I stayed locked in place, watching as the Blood Realm hold boiled itself away, fingers still digging deep into the mortar as I dug even deeper to keep myself from screaming at the horror playing in my head.
As quickly as it began, the roiling stopped. The red-black surface smoothed. My breathing slowed, heart quieted. I sighed, hoping it was over but certain to my core that it wasn’t.
Eerie stillness. Not a sound aside from my own shallow breaths.
I tried once more to extricate myself, to move my feet or will the vision from my head as deep, visceral dread poured into the pit of my stomach.
I scanned the lake, the horizon, the dark skies. Everywhere, eyes darting, heart ratcheting up once more.
Why hadn’t the vision released me? What did it want me to see?
The placid lake exploded, raining blood in sheets all around, and the scream I’d fought to keep buried erupted.
Whatever magic held my feet in place released its grip and I fell on my ass, still screaming, the vision gone from my mind but playing over and over behind my eyes as I stumbled to right myself and get the hell out.
I shot to my feet and ran from that room until my legs burned, through unfamiliar underground corridors and rooms, checking my hands and arms and face over and over for blood that wasn’t there. I ran until I couldn’t anymore, until I had no idea where in the palace I was and still hadn’t put enough distance between me and the hold.
Gripping the wall, wheezing with my efforts, I shimmered out, hoping to every god there was I didn’t end up back in that place.
I fell to the ground, pulling the black sheers that hung from the poster bed down with me, heaving, breathing so fast I feared I might lose consciousness.
“Zurie!” Verrill shimmered in front of me, crouching low and reaching for me.
I pulled away. Every cell in my body, every bit of skin burned, singed with magic the hold forced into my head.
“Mistress, please. What’s happened? Your mind disappeared from my awareness once I left, only to reappear screaming and terrified.”
I hugged my knees to my chest and waited for it to pass, waited to feel normal once more.
Verrill’s thick brows pulled together, forming a deep crease between his midnight sky eyes. “I’m calling everyone else.”
I shook my head. “No, please. It’s too much.” I creaked, voice breaking on each vowel, trembling with fear, magic curling off me in plumes and swirls.
“Then tell me how I can help you.”
Tears slipped down my face as I looked at Verrill’s pained expression. “It’s too much,” I repeated. I couldn’t get the words out. I couldn’t tell him what I’d seen, how much magic I’d been violated with. I didn’t dare touch any of my own magic, not even to put the words directly into the realm leader’s head.
He reached for me once more and much like shimmering to the demon realm that first time, broken and nearly unconscious, my magic carried me out of harm’s way once again.