Chapter 60 Nox
Nox
“...success, all things considered,” a middle-aged man with a thick mane of black hair and near-white skin was saying. He stood in a gray room with more bookshelves and cabinets than I could count, and was speaking to someone outside the vision’s field of view.
“Yes, it appears so,” a second voice said. One that made blinding hatred crash through me. My dragon instantly roared in my chest when Scarven appeared, stepping closer to the other man. “You brought down their wards?”
The man nodded with a sinister smile. “And killed their Alchemist so he can’t put them back up.”
Beside me, Devora sucked in a breath. “That’s Malek Mortep,” she whispered. “Scarven’s head Alchemist. The one who’s helped him create all the experiments. I recognize the room—they’re in the Hollow.”
Scarven spread his hands wide. “And how is it that you alone made it out alive, dear Malek?” His tone was mocking and sharp.
To my surprise, the Alchemist chuckled. The sound made the hair on the back of my neck rise. “You don’t keep me around because I fight in losing battles, my lord. You keep me because I win them. We both know you didn’t want any of those men coming back alive.”
Scarven clapped Malek Mortep on the back. “It makes cleaning up far easier, does it not? Tell me, what did you discover?”
“The dragon and the girl showed up in the thick of it, as you anticipated. They do appear to care for one another.” At Mortep’s words, Scarven snarled, and dread pooled in my stomach. Had this Alchemist been watching the entire fight?
“I must admit, I was skeptical of how all my serums you administered would interact, but it seemed to have a desirable effect,” the Alchemist spoke clinically, keeping his voice measured.
“The girl’s magic was out of her control.
Ten times stronger and far more deadly. She killed at least ten of our own without blinking. ”
Devora shuddered. I looked over to see her grip the edge of the table with a pinched forehead. I instinctively moved to wrap an arm around her waist, but she pulled away.
“And do they suspect anything?” Scarven asked.
“Not that I’m aware of. I expect they’ll be tending to their wounded before realizing anything is wrong.”
Scarven’s dark eyes flashed. “Excellent work. Will our losses cause a delay in the Guardian Forge shipment?”
“No, my lord. Everything is set. We told them to be prepared for arrival in approximately two days.”
“Good.” Scarven rapped his knuckles on the table. “I need those weap—”
The vision wavered as the last inch of bloodied cloth burned to ash. The fire went out, taking the image of the Hollow with it.
We all stood in silence as smoke curled toward the ceiling.
Milo let out a slow breath. “That man killed Silas.”
“That man has done a lot of things,” Everett grunted.
“I remember him. Scarven’s mad Alchemist. We saw him more than Scarven himself.
” The Illusionist’s jaw shifted. “He used to come into our cells and torture us with his serums, then collect our blood until there was barely enough to keep us alive.”
“What did he inject you with, Devora?” Tessa asked softly, moving to her other side. She reached for Devora, but she jerked away just as she had with me.
“I don’t know.” Devora paused and closed her eyes.
“There were several serums, but I don’t know what they did.
I—I passed out a lot.” Her voice lowered to a whisper.
“I just thought he was taking away my magic. Not—not changing it.” She looked down at her hands, then wrapped them around her midsection.
What have I done? That was what she’d said to me tonight after killing those men. After her shadows had ravaged both them and her own body, turning her veins and eyes completely black. It was like something had taken over. A cruel, savage version of herself. Had his experiments done this?
What else had he done?
“He said there’s a shipment. I believe he was going to say ‘weapons’ before the spell cut off,” Kieran said, bringing my focus back. “It’s arriving in two days at somewhere called the Guardian Forge. It’s important to him; that much is obvious. We need to be there.”
I nodded. “This is the first time we have the upper hand. We have to take advantage of it.”
Arowyn tilted her head. “But what’s the play here? We get there and then…what? We don’t know what type of weapons he has or what he’s planning on doing with them. We don’t even know where it is.”
“I do. It’s an abandoned weapon’s forge built into the Guardian Range,” I said.
Our previous emperor established stations along each province’s border to be used only in cases of emergencies, or when citizens rebelled against his border guards.
It was far north, close to the border between Drakorum and Emberfell.
I gave the Order a shortened version of what Devora and I had done in the capital these last couple of days, including my fears about Scarven imbuing fatesprig into weapons and other objects on a mass scale.
“Great.” Arowyn crossed her arms. “So we get there before his team, wait for them to bring the weapons, destroy the stash, and kill them all. Easy.”
“He’s not simply going to allow anyone to walk right into this forge without precautions in place,” Kieran countered. “He will have defenses. Magical wards. Guards. Plenty of ways for us to get ourselves killed if we are not careful.”
“And besides that, how are we supposed to destroy it all?” Tessa asked.
Milo tapped a finger on the table, next to Silas’s open Grimoire. “We blow it up.”
As one, we all turned to him. Arowyn blinked. “Did Milo just say that?”
“Silas and I—we—” Milo cleared his throat. “We’ve been experimenting with some fire spells. He thought we might need to break into Scarven’s mansion one day, and would need something with a bit more…kick.”
“Yes, because a fire-breathing dragon wouldn’t do the trick,” Tessa said, her voice missing its usual sass.
“It’s an explosive,” Milo continued. “A powerful charm we developed that’s dormant in an object until the spell is spoken and it’s set on fire.
It absorbs the fire, then magnifies it times a thousand.
” He ducked beneath the table and rummaged for something, then reappeared with a black box.
After setting it on the counter, he pulled out a piece of dark red quartz.
“We tested a less powerful version down at the shores once. It works.”
We all swiftly backed away from the table.
“Whoa, Milo. You can’t just whip out your explosives like that,” Arowyn said.
Milo gave her a bland look. “It’s not activated. I haven’t said the spell or lit it on fire. This is just a rock right now.”
“Is it instantaneous?” I asked, examining the crystal.
“When we tried it, there was about a fifteen second delay as it soaked up the force of the fire and then exploded.” Milo shrugged.
“It was enough time for us to get to safety, although Silas did land flat on his back,” he said with a chuckle, a distant look in his eyes.
It quickly faded as his shoulders slumped.
“That was a much smaller scale, though. It covered maybe twenty feet. It could’ve taken down a small house, but not something like a weapon’s forge. ”
“But it could,” I pressed.
Milo rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I could get it there. But that kind of power…you’d need much longer than fifteen seconds to get away in time.”
“If only you knew a Strider. Oh, wait,” Arowyn said, quirking an eyebrow. “Say your spell, give me the stone, and I’ll light it on fire and stride out of there. Problem solved. Next?”
“We need to see what kind of defenses he has over the place before barging in,” I pointed out.
“And before you start volunteering yourself for every task, Arowyn, you literally just depleted all your energy to warn us about the attack. I’m not about to let you stride across the province and back without your full strength. ”
The Strider twisted her lips but didn’t argue. For all of her sarcastic jokes, she still looked exhausted. Her skin was paler than usual, and deep circles hung beneath her eyes.
“If we leave first thing tomorrow morning, we can beat the shipment,” Everett said. “It only takes a little over a day to get to the Guardian Range. That gives us half a day to scout. I can illusion a couple of us to sneak into the forge and check it out undetected.”
“So that’s Arowyn and Everett in for Operation Guardian Forge.” Tessa looked at everyone expectantly. “Some of us should stay behind. The Keep isn’t safe anymore.”
Milo swallowed. “I’ll stay. Someone needs to try and get Silas’s wards back up. Especially if we think they’ll keep coming back for her.” His gaze flickered to Devora, his jaw clenching briefly before looking away.
“Don’t you need to activate the explosive charm thing?” Arowyn asked.
“I can do that before you go. Just don’t set it on fire until you’re ready,” he warned.
“I’m going,” I said, straightening my spine. “Tessa, Kieran, you stay back with Milo and Devora. Protect the refugees and make a plan for if we need to evacuate. Arowyn and Ev—”
“I’m going with you,” Devora interjected, facing me with those fierce, determined eyes.
I sighed. I saw that coming. “No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
Kieran raised an eyebrow. Tessa looked between us and said, “This sounds like something the two of you need to work out.”
I kept my gaze trained on Devora, refusing to break her stare. “Go. Get some rest,” I said to the others. “Arowyn and Everett, meet me here at sunrise.”
One by one, they slipped out of the workshop, leaving the space silent and strained.
“You can’t stop me, Nox,” Devora finally said.
I let out a low chuckle. “Trust me, darling. I think I can.”
She crossed her arms. “I thought we’d moved past this. What was all of that about ‘a wise woman once told me I can’t keep forcing others to sit out?’”