Chapter 100 – Darann #2
“It doesn’t matter what he did to me.”
“The fuck it doesn’t?—“
“It doesn’t,” she repeated, sharper, pushing through the pain. “What matters is the spell. The Abyssal Boom.”
I stared at her. “The what?”
She swallowed, voice ragged. “The spell is inside him, Darann. It’s a massive abyssal cloud that will destroy everything in its path. It grows the more it consumes. If we don’t stop it…”
She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to.
I swore under my breath. “Where is he now? Where is he planning to release it?”
Before she could answer, a faint pulse shivered against her palm. We both looked down.
Biscuit—the little shadow-wisp—was curled there, pulsing urgently, frantic and insistent. It pressed itself harder against her skin, as if trying to crawl inside it.
She frowned weakly. “What’s wrong? Do you know something?”
A quicker, brighter pulse.
Yes.
Her voice softened, tired but focused. “Do you know where he will strike?”
Another pulse.
Yes.
I blinked at it. “How?”
She pressed her lips together. “Abyssal magic originally came from the Undercurrent. It’s… a twisted version of it. They can sense one another. Biscuit’s reacting to the disturbance Torven’s creating.”
Biscuit pulsed again—faster, more urgent.
“Great,” I muttered. “Now we take orders from a smoke worm.”
She snorted weakly. “He’s not reading the map—he’s sensing.”
Biscuit pulsed once more. Then it slithered up her wrist, across the desk, and floated toward the far corner of the room—the wall where I kept the massive, rune-etched map of Kareth mounted.
It flattened itself against the parchment, trembling over one cluster of ruins—the southern fissures of Thalor.
My brows shot up. “…don’t tell me it learned how to read maps.”
She gave me a tired look. “Darann. Focus. And it’s a he.”
Gods. “I am focused,” I snapped. “I’m also horrified.”
She leaned forward, eyes narrowing at the point Biscuit marked. Her breath hitched, and not from pain this time.
“…this is worse than Torven made it sound.”
“Oh, good,” I muttered, dragging a hand down my face. “So we’re all going to die horribly unless we do something incredibly stupid. Wonderful.” I turned toward the door. “Ren! Pack the travel kit! We’re going to Thalor to stop an apocalyptic explosion!”
Ren’s voice drifted from down the hallway: “Packing for the apocalypse. Got it.”
I turned back to her and immediately saw the shift. She had gone still. The color drained from her face. Her hand, braced on the desk, trembled violently.
“Daz…”
The nickname hit me like a fist.
I stepped closer. “What’s wrong?”
She inhaled a shaky breath. Then another. Her throat bobbed as she forced the words out.
“It was him.”
“Torven?” I said. “We established that?—“
“No,” she whispered, voice cracking. “Him.” Her eyes closed tight, pain twisting her features. “He confessed before he cut me.”
Something in my chest clenched. “Confessed what?” I asked, quieter now. I placed a hand on her shoulder—steady, grounding, not letting her slip back into the memory alone.
She blinked hard. Tears gathered but didn’t fall.
“He killed Eris,” she whispered. “He was the one who hired those people to hunt him. To kill him. It wasn’t random Dravareth raiders. It was Torven all along.”
The room tilted. For a moment, all the air left my lungs.
Eris.
I knew him. Calm. Steady. Dangerous in that quiet sort of way.
And I remembered what his death had done to her.
The way she stopped smiling properly after that.
The way she threw herself at every job, like she didn’t much care whether she walked back from it.
The fights she didn’t bother stepping around.
The nights she drank herself to sleep because staying conscious meant feeling it.
She hadn’t fallen apart all at once. She’d worn herself down by inches.
Hollowed herself out and kept moving anyway.
Her voice broke completely. The tears she’d been holding back finally spilled over.
“I thought—“ She choked on it. “I thought it was war. Bad luck. Random violence. But he chose it. He chose to take Eris from me.”
Something old and dark surged within me. I stepped forward and gathered her against my chest without thinking. She stiffened, then sagged against me.
My jaw clenched so tight it hurt. If Torven wasn’t dead yet?—
I was going to change that.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Completely.
She trembled in my arms from the weight of what she’d confessed. I held her until the shaking eased, until her breathing steadied enough for her to function again. She pulled back a fraction, wiped at her face with the back of her hand, and forced herself upright.
“We have to warn them,” she rasped. “Tywin. Veshar. Kareth. They don’t know what’s coming.”
I swore under my breath. “It’s six hours on horseback.”
“We don’t have six hours.”
She was right. By the time we reached Tempest normally, Torven could have unleashed the Boom and erased half the continent.
I dragged a hand through my hair. “We can’t teleport. No one here can open a gate. All the portal mages are under Veshar’s command.”
Her eyes sharpened despite her pallor. She turned her palm upward. Biscuit pulsed there, quick and urgent.
“Biscuit,” she whispered. “Can the Undercurrent take me back to Tempest?”
A pause.
Then a clear, firm pulse.
Yes.
My stomach dropped. “Absolutely the fuck not.”
She ignored me. “Can it take someone else too?”
A long pause. Then a pulse, weaker this time.
Possible. Dangerous.
She looked up at me. “We don’t have another choice, Darann.”
“The hells we don’t,” I snapped. “You’re barely standing.”
She straightened—stubborn, impossible woman—even though her knees wobbled and her hand tightened on the desk to keep from collapsing.
“We don’t have time to ride,” she said. “If Torven triggers the Boom while we’re halfway across Solmarin?—“
“I know,” I growled. “I’m not thrilled about tossing you back into a godsdamned tear between realms when you nearly died the first time.”
“This is bigger than me.”
Her voice was soft. Final.
I hated that tone. I hated that I agreed with it.
Ren reappeared in the doorway, pack slung over one shoulder, face set in grim determination. “We’re packed. Ready to move.”
I turned to him. “You’re staying.”
Ren blinked. “The hells I am.”
“You’re staying,” I repeated, voice iron. “If this shit goes sideways, someone needs to keep this place standing. And if we don’t return… someone needs to tell people what happened.”
She stiffened. “No. It’s too dangerous. I won’t let you die for me.”