“You’re going to regret that,” Gavin said.
“I’m coming with you,” Wrenlow said. “This is what you taught me to do.”
Gavin wasn’t sure if Wrenlow was ready or not, but he wasn’t going to chase him away now. He also didn’t want his friend to get into trouble by staying with him, but what could he do otherwise?
Gavin turned and searched along the street. Darkness. Magic.
This was the kind of thing Tristan would pull.
But why here? Why would he have released Wrenlow?
Only… he hadn’t. Wrenlow had broken out. That suggested to Gavin that this wasn’t a test or that Tristan had wanted for him to think that Wrenlow had broken out on his own. Gavin didn’t know what it was and was determined to figure it out, but he had to act quickly.
He darted forward, and a familiar tingling washed across his arms. He brought his sword up, sending his own magic into the blade, leaving it glowing.
“Oh,” Wrenlow said next to him.
The power exploded out through the blade, causing everything around them to be cast in a bluish haze. Gavin searched around them to figure out what was there, but he didn’t see anything. There had been something, though. He could feel it tingling along his skin.
“I know you’re out there,” he said.
If it was Tristan, then so be it. Maybe Tristan had called them here, using Wrenlow as bait. Obviously, the attack outside Nelar had not worked. So whatever else Tristan wanted, he still needed Gavin for it.
But what was it?
“Step out here and we can talk,” he said. He didn’t know if anybody would bother to emerge, but he wasn’t about to wait around. “Show yourself.”
“Gavin?” Wrenlow asked, nudging him from behind.
Gavin turned and held the sword out from him. The light that exploded around them was incredible. He was calling upon far more of his core reserve magic than he had before, which was coming from the sh’rasn that he had consumed. He should have known better than to do it, and he knew that there was a danger in holding on to that much power. But Gavin had needed it to see what was here.
A darkened figure came toward them, which must have been what Wrenlow had seen. Gavin held out the blade, ready to attack, when something caught his attention.
Smoke.
He had seen that kind of smoke before. It swirled around the figure, working from their feet up to their head.
Gavin groaned. “The Toral,” he said.
So much for trying to send word to her.
The figure continued to approach.
“I have the feeling you don’t want to fight,” Gavin said. “But if you do, you’ll find that I will be more of a challenge for you than the last time we faced each other.”
The smoke continued to swirl around her as she kept walking toward them. Gavin struggled to see anything as the haze that generated around her obscured her features.
And then she stopped about five paces away from him.
“I don’t know what you’re looking for, but I can help you find it, if you’ll stop this fighting.” He was no longer sure if it was the dark egg. “You don’t have to work for Tristan. Or the Fates. Or… whoever you’re working for.”
“You keep saying that name as if I should know it.”
Gavin hesitated. He continued to push power through him into the blade, using that to eliminate the night. He would run out of his core reserves eventually, but for now, he would hold on to that power as much as he could.
“You don’t know who you’re working for?” he asked.
Gavin hid his surprise. That wasn’t anything he would’ve expected from Tristan, who was proud and wanted people to know they were working on his behalf. He didn’t try to manipulate them into working for him, at least that had not been Gavin’s experience before. Tristan forced them to serve, and he coerced them, but he didn’t manipulate. It was a fine distinction, but it was definitely one Gavin believed in.
The other woman let smoke swirl from her. It was faint, though when it touched upon her, it seemed to Gavin that she used it in ways to protect the Toral.
That was interesting.
“I know who I’m working for, but I’m not sharing his name with you,” the Toral said.
“Careful,” the other woman said. “You remember what happened the last time.”
“I know what happened,” the Toral said, though she kept her focus on Gavin.
She didn’t try to wrap him in power the way she had the last few times.
And she didn’t attack.
That had to matter.
“You don’t deny that you’re working for somebody, though.”
“Not this Tristan.”
“Not a half-El’aras man who sent you to kill me?”
She frowned. “I wasn’t sent to kill anyone. We had word of an item of dark power in the city. A t’ranth. That’s why we’re here.”
The smoke continued to swirl around her. She turned and whispered something, and soon the smoke started to fade. As it drifted down, another woman’s form was revealed. She was dressed in a black cloak, strands of her red hair hanging out from the hood, her pale skin practically gleaming in the light of his blade.
“You’ve said that before, but I don’t know anything by that term. Is it the dark egg?”
“You know this device?”
“I might know something about it. It’s safe. No one is using it.” Again, he didn’t want to add. And with Zella keeping it protected, it was safe.
It would stay that way, as well.
More than that, it would stay in the city.
That was how they would keep the Fates from attacking.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Gavin Lorren. You would have known that, though, if you were sent for me.”
“I wasn’t sent for you.”
Gavin furrowed his brow, and everything he’d learned about her so far started to come together in his mind. “Your friend at the outpost didn’t think
