“Demyan?” Kendall said. He glanced at her, her eyes begging for an answer he could not give. Something was wrong, but he could not adequately express that to those around him. She knew it, too; he saw that in her face as well and felt shame well up inside of him. His stomach twisted up, forcing his attention back to the path ahead of them. Movement to his left took his attention to Aisling. She stood beside him, a giant sentinel of white and gray that now bristled from head to tail. She felt what Demyan did, sensed the growing evil that made the young king shiver. There was something… vile ahead of them.
Aeron moved up the few steps to be at Demyan’s left shoulder rather than behind the Kormandi king. Aisling moved as well, the gryphon’s wings twitching in agitation and concern. She felt the same vileness that Demyan did, the same evil approaching from the south. It was a natural instinct now to let the flow of molten Power rush through his veins when he felt afraid or threatened. He was not the only one, either, seeing the green glow of Aeron’s eyes that signified the boy’s own Power rushing through his system.
“What is wrong? Why we have stopped?” the Baron asked through a rumbling whisper. He stood in front of Nadya and the queen’s acolytes. Vasily tensed, hand tightening on the hilt of a short sword carried at his hip. Folsam, the queen’s personal guard, and Master Barth both did the same, both as concerned as everyone else. It had been too long since they’d heard from the scouting party ahead of them, too long without a break to the surface, too long in silence. It furthered the sense of dread in Demyan’s gut.
“There is something coming,” Demyan managed in a breathless whisper that was so heavily accented it was nearly unintelligible. He needed a better grasp on the spoken word of the Kormandi people but had no time to spare for it now. “Ahead of us. Evil. I can feel it. It’s growing stronger and closer.”
The switch to the Imperial tongue took some of the members of his party by surprise. Despite what the Kormandi might think, that was the language he was best at and the language he would use until he could learn something else. They had no time for misunderstanding or incomplete thoughts. Aeron, he knew, understood him perfectly as did Vasily.
“How far ahead?” Aeron asked after translating for the rest of the party, easily switching between the Imperial tongue and the Trade Cant. Aeron did not sense it but did not question what Demyan said either, something the young inexperienced king appreciated more than words could express.
“Close. Too close. We need to turn around,” Demyan ordered with enough of a pause to allow Aeron to translate his Imperial words.
“Turn around? We are almost to Tatengel,” the Baron argued. Demyan heard shuffling feet even as he put Kendall behind him. She backed up, her acolytes and guard coming to stand at the queen’s side.
“I promise you, Baron Karov, now is probably not the best time for argument,” Aeron said, already backing up. “Turn the bloody hells around.”
Demyan could already imagine the rage brewing in the young baron’s face. He did not take kindly to being spoken to in such a manner. Regardless of his reputation, he was still a member of the Kormandi nobility and demanded the respect owed to him for such a title. Aeron did not care about titles, not in that moment and, quite frankly, neither did Demyan. He glanced at the Baron once and turned back in time to see a ball of crackling ice-blue energy barreling down the catacombs straight at them.
“DOWN!” Demyan cried, dropping to the ground. Everyone dropped to the floor as chaos exploded all around them in a spray of marble and bone. Kendall screamed, squeezing Demyan’s hand so tightly that her nails dug into his pale skin.
“PLAYTHINGS!” they heard followed by a terrible snarl that echoed all around them. Demyan heard someone scream but could not determine who. He was aware of rolling around on the dirty floor, of tugging or pulling and losing Kendall’s hand in the process. He paused long enough to make a desperate search for his wife, for the poor girl saddled with a fool of a man for a husband. What he found, instead, was the pommel of someone’s sword. Stars exploded in his vision, knocking him flat on his back.
“Get away from him!” Aeron hollered from somewhere nearby. Demyan’s head swam in undulating waves of vertigo, his eyes rolling in his head even as he tried to force himself to hands and knees to crawl away. It did not work, the weight sending shooting pain up his wrist all the way to his shoulder. He fell back onto his side, rolling onto his back just as a blast of energy flew by. He felt the heat of something burning just above his nose, the air briefly caustic. He coughed, rolling onto his side as someone took hold of the back of his coat and dragged him away from where he’d been.
Aeron grabbed Demyan, dragging the disoriented king away further back down the catacombs to an alcove where someone named Ilya Dev was entombed. Aeron said a small prayer to Ilya for his protection, shaking Demyan to rouse the king from his stupor.
“Hey, are you alright? Demyan?” Aeron asked in the Imperial tongue so that the poor bastard would actually understand him. He received a response in the
