Chapter 3
Von
“O ut of the way, child,” Ezra bellowed at one of the kitchen staff as she carried a pot over to the sink, dumping out the bubbling, hissing contents. A billow of steam rolled toward the ceiling, followed by something pungent, something that smelled like ammonia.
She sighed in relief. “That was a close one.”
With my fist balled up in the back of Soren’s tunic, I steered him through my fading shadows into the kitchen, back at my castle in the Spirit Realm. I had given the cavernous room to Ezra so she could work on her magic potions—one of which she promised would help me get Sage back.
I shoved the sniveling worm ahead, my fist releasing from his shirt. It was just enough force to make him stumble but not enough to make him fall to the floor.
My brow raised. There was a large, dark splotch between his legs. I glanced down at my thigh, noting a trace of dampness on the black leather. I groaned as realization dawned. The pungent smell was not from Ezra’s pot—it was Soren’s piss.
He’d pissed on me.
“Fucking mortals,” I grumbled as I waved my hand over my leg, dissolving the urine. I looked at Soren’s trousers, my magic cleaning that mess as well.
I didn’t do it for him.
The last thing I wanted to smell was his piss. I imagined the rest of the staff would agree.
Soren looked down, stunned to find his pants were dry.
Ezra turned around, her milky-white orbs looking past me. “You found him, I see.” She cracked a smile, entertained by her own overused joke.
“When do we start?” I asked, eyeing a staff worker dumping a copious amount of salt into a boiling pot.
Salt was something Ezra had requested a lot of lately, so much so that I was having it delivered to the castle in wagon loads.
I didn’t ask questions, nor did I care. If salt was the answer to me getting Sage back, I’d harvest every crystal, until the realms had no more to give.
“In due time,” Ezra answered as a girl handed her a wood cane. Swollen and stiff knuckles wrapped around the handle. “Soren, dear, can I get you something to eat?”
“W-w-where am I?” he stammered, looking around.
“You are in the Spirit Realm,” Ezra answered.
“Am I dead?” he asked, two fingers and three nubs raking back his blond hair, as if getting that mop out of his eyes would help him see. A laughable notion—the boy was as blind as they came.
“Unfortunately, not yet. Although, I will thoroughly enjoy it when your time comes,” I said, my voice making him bristle.
He turned around and began to back away from me. “I a-a-always knew th-th-that something was-was off about you.”
“I am what I am, but at least I am not a spineless traitor.” My tone was menacing.
“Not only did you cross Sage’s unconscious mind barrier, but you used it to manipulate her into thinking Ezra’s life was at stake.
Because you did that, my hand was forced into making a deal to protect her, one that meant I could not save her when she needed me the most.”
“Save her?” Soren asked. “From what?”
So then, the boy didn’t know.
“She is dead.” The words were like ash on my tongue. My chest grew still, the oxygen evaporating from my lungs.
His eyes widened. “That’s why I don’t feel the connection to her mind anymore,” he spoke to himself. “But wait . . . doesn’t that mean she’s here?”
“No,” I said. “When mortals die in the Three Realms, they come to the Spirit Realm, but when immortals die, their souls cease to exist here.”
“So . . . she’s really dead .” Soren choked out the last word. His expression folded in on itself as tears filled his eyes. They began to leak down his face as he fell to his knees. “It’s all my fault.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Ezra’s cane sounded against the floor as she moved to Soren’s side.
She patted his head in a bid to comfort him.
“ Although your actions played a hand in the events that led to her death, they are not entirely to blame. Sage chose her own path, and she sacrificed herself to save countless others. Now it is our turn to save her.”
Soren looked up at Ezra, his voice breaking as he asked, “How are you going to do that?”
My muscles stiffened. Soren was one of the last people I wanted Ezra divulging our plan to, especially while it was in its infancy.
Continuing to stroke his head, she replied, “With your help.”
The tightness in my muscles eased.
“How am I going to help?” Soren asked.
“I’ll get to that, but first, let’s get you something to eat and a nice hot cup of tea,” Ezra said. She pursed her lips in thought. “Although, we might have to go to another kitchen to find you something . . . edible.”
“Ezra,” I cut in, voice flatter than a slab of stone. Colder, too. “I’d like to speak to you. Outside.”
“Alright,” she said, the rhythmic tapping of her cane following me out of the room.
When we were out of earshot, I turned to her and snarled, “Soren is a traitor, and he should be treated as such.”
“Soren is a scared little boy who wants what everyone else wants—to live,” she countered, her hands resting on the top of her cane.
“Then he really should have made better choices,” I stated, my tone menacing.
“He was dealt a poor hand, and he made his decisions based on it.”
“That does not excuse what he has done.”
“No, it doesn’t.” She paused. “But he does genuinely care for Sage, and that is something we will use to our advantage. Besides, for what we are going to ask him to do . . . he is going to need his strength. A full belly will help him with that.”
I raised one brow in challenge. “Who said anything about asking ?”
Ezra sighed, licked her cracked lips, and then said, her voice soft, “I understand your anger toward him—”
“Clearly you do not,” I interjected, my teeth clenched.
“Have you forgotten what he’s done? That useless mortal is part of why Sage is no longer here.
I will show him all the grace he showed her when he wove his lies into her mind, making her believe he held a knife to your throat, all so he could save himself. ”
“I have not forgotten, no.” She took a breath. “But a wise god once told me people are more amenable when they believe they have a choice, even if they do not.” Beneath her milky-white orbs, I could see the razor-sharp mind at work. “I wonder, where is that god now?”
I chuckled at that. “You would try to turn my own words against me in order to manipulate me?” I asked, somewhat amused.
“I wouldn’t dare,” Ezra lied with a coy smile.
“Mhm,” I responded, looking past her, through the doorway, and into the kitchen at the boy who had pissed himself mere moments ago. Perhaps Ezra was right. Perhaps force wasn’t the answer . . . at least, for the time being. “Fine, we’ll do it your way.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
“But the second—”
“I know, I know,” she interjected. “ Then we’ll try it your way.”
I nodded, forcing a breath into my heated lungs. I watched the boy and muttered, “I do not trust him.”
“Nor do I,” she agreed. “But for this to work, we need him.”
A muscle ticked in my jaw. I hated that truth. Hated all of this.
But if this was what it took to have Sage back in my arms, I would endure.
Speaking of—
“The mixtures you have been preparing, how are things going?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
“They are getting closer,” she answered. “But I’m going to need those tears from a Lost Soul, as we discussed before.”
“I’ll get them.”
“Good. You concentrate on getting those, and I’ll focus on my part.”
I nodded. “Alright.”
Her cane guided her as she walked back into the kitchen, her voice filling with false pleasantries as she said to Soren, “Now, about that cup of tea.”