The dark egg.
That was the only thing of real value in the chamber.
And Tristan was the one after it.
They had to be with him.
Gavin brought the sword back and swung. The blade slammed into the barrier, and the suddenness of the blow forced the lead woman back a step.
Some part of her barrier shifted. Gavin took that as a positive sign.
“You might want to keep moving back,” he said.
The woman frowned. She had a dark and lovely face, which Gavin had to ignore. He didn’t often go against female attackers, though it seemed to him that Tristan enjoyed sending women after him.
Another challenge in how well he knew Gavin.
Tristan knew about Gavin’s hesitation to attack women. It had been one that Tristan had fought against when Gavin had been training with him, trying to force Gavin to recognize this weakness that needed to be expunged.
Gavin brought the sword back again and swung it, this time powering through the blade and pushing as much as he could. Energy exploded and slammed into the barrier. All three women staggered backward.
Gavin hurriedly regrouped. He hacked at the barrier, lines of blue sparkling along it and along the blade. As he continued to batter at it, rage filled him. He slammed the sword forward again, and the women took another step back. He swung it one more time, and the barrier exploded.
The copies faded, leaving only one woman.
Maybe the barrier had only made it look like there were three of them.
Gavin darted forward. The woman held up her hands, twisting them in a strange spiral pattern, and another barrier formed around them. The copies didn’t reform. He noticed something then. A pale, stone ring on one finger of her hand.
The ring from his dream.
When he had failed Tristan.
The first—and last—time that he had failed this completely.
“Where did you get that?” Gavin whispered.
The woman frowned again. She twisted her hands once more, and power exploded from her. It wasn’t sorcery, at least not directly, but it was a sort of strange magic he had never seen or felt before. He tried to resist what she was doing, but the energy crackled against him, as if it were forming a stronger barrier.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
Her magic had surrounded him. She was going to trap him, and if he wasn’t careful, she would use their magic to overwhelm him.
Gavin took a step toward the barrier.
“All we want is the t’ranth, and we’ll leave you alive. We know it’s nearby,” the woman said.
We? And what was a t’ranth?
“Who are you?”
“It doesn’t have to go this way,” she said.
Gavin frowned at her. “Maybe we should take a break. I just want to rest. You can leave, come back later, and maybe we can talk.”
He sheathed the sword and instead grabbed the dagger, then pressed power out through it. As he did, he realized something: the blade was not glowing.
Either she wasn’t using magic, or she was concealing it somehow. Given what he’d felt, he suspected it was a concealment—unless her magic was different and not the kind the El’aras blade could even detect. If that was the case, then how was he supposed to survive this at all?
Gavin furrowed his brow and glanced down at the blade before looking back up at the women. “Not a sorcerer. And no talking. Great.”
Then again, what if she was? He had seen the sorcerer, the strange ring that indicated that type of power—even though he didn’t really understand what it meant, why she would have it, or whether he needed to be concerned about that ring.
“I need a few more minutes,” another voice said.
Gavin spun toward it, though tried to keep his hands up. Who else was here?
All he saw was a trace of smoke. Nothing else in the shadows.
“I don’t know if I have that long,” the redheaded woman said.
“Give me what you can. I have to get through this door.”
They were breaking into his room.
But for what?
A t’ranth.
That was what she wanted.
The dark egg was behind that door.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have a t’ranth. And you’re not getting into my little lair. It’s cozy. I like it. And you don’t belong there.”
He stabbed outward, trying to call on his core reserves at the same time.
She pressed toward him. There was more power coming, and Gavin focused on what he could feel. Their magic wrapped around him and attempted to squeeze him. This was something he could break free from.
He focused on the core reserves within him and ignored the energy of the El’aras dagger. For now. Power lingered within him. And then, much like he had in his training with Tristan, Gavin pulled the energy up through him and exploded it outward.
He expected something similar to what had happened the night before, when he had used a similar connection to blast outward. When he had done that, Gavin had thrown the attackers away from him and slammed them into walls, and the boxes had been strewn about.
This time, as he sent that power crashing away from him, he felt the resistance still there. It reminded Gavin of what he felt when trying to break through the chains. This was simply a type of chain, though it was a different kind than he’d ever dealt with before.
“Are you close?” the redhead asked.
“It’s not working.”
“Mine didn’t either. We’ll have to try something else.”
Gavin wasn’t sure how much time he had. Not much. Not enough.
They would get in and take what they were after.
They said t’ranth, and he worried that was the dark egg.
Maybe Tristan had put them up to it.
Gavin pressed outward with the energy he held on to, but even as he did, he couldn’t feel any way to overwhelm this.
He looked at the woman.
What he needed was a way to focus it.
He pointed the dagger at her, and she simply frowned at it. Gavin began to push even more, and the power blasted outward through the dagger and struck her, throwing
