Page 96 of Summer of Sacrifice

“My little mischievous friend, I believe you might be just the one to fill in the gaps.”

The Aureland creature nodded soberly and took a deep breath. Slowly, he turned to face Agatha and Grimm. “Aureland is where the two of you first sent Athania. When she landed in my realm, I immediately knew. I am a Gatekeeper.”

He put his animalistic hand to his chest. “I keep watch over the entrances into Aureland, as there are four and they lead to other lands. Thanasim, I do not know what you remember and what you do not, but your choice of Aureland was quite intentional. It was the place of your first life.”

Smithwick’s attention flicked to Nyxia, who nodded, her eyes downcast and haunted.

“It is the realm of your descendants. It is the realm of Keepers. Powerful beings often called Elves. At the time of Athania’s…arrival, Queen Nuria and her brother, Prince Khyan, ruled Aureland. They allowed Athania to stay, though she ended up imprisoned many times. Aureland is a land of peace and safety.

“Always, she would escape the dungeon. Eventually, they discovered she was luring Keepers and other magical creatures in and consuming their magic to make herself more powerful. Most of them perished, as magic is tied up in the soul, but a few got away in time. Though, tragically, they were never the same.

“By that time, she had consumed so much magic that it made her powerful enough to enter Orford, a place in the realm from which you originally threw her. The realm where she—” He paused and looked at Agatha wearily. “The place where she’d attacked Asteria.”

Searing pain shot through Agatha’s head until she thought her skull would fissure.

…Athania pressing a knife against Asteria’s swollen stomach, slicing the fabric of her bodice. Magic wrapping around her body, pushing the knife and Athania back. A roar that shook the mountains, a cloud of black smog rolling in... Thanasim roaring out of nowhere, his skeletal fist plunging into Athania’s chest as Asteria screamed for him to stop. As he ripped Athania’s soul free from her body, snarling like a rabid beast…

Agatha coughed, trying to drag in great gasps of air. Grimm was up from his chair, gripping her shoulders and saying her name.

She’d had a dream just like that, many, many times.

It had been real…

“I’m all right,” she croaked. “Smithwick, please, go on. Why did Athania want back into Orford?”

A glass of water appeared on the table in front of her and Smithwick pushed with all his might to scoot it closer to her, some of it spilling over the rim with the movement. “If you drink up, I will continue,” he said, standing in a little puddle.

Agatha obeyed, and Smithwick carried on.

“She wanted the goddess quill, as Isadora said. When she was taken hostage by a general at war with Orford after her husband was killed, the quill had been left behind.”

Grimm shook his head. “I have vague memories of her telling me repeatedly she did not have it in Orford. I knew she was lying. At some point, after she was dropped in Aureland, I went to Orford and took the quill.”

“Indeed she was lying, my friend, and that you did. But this was around the time that she stole a Portal Key—needed in Aureland to come in or leave—and she went into Orford to retrieve the quill herself, realising then what you’d done. At that point, she raged and killed anyone in her path—again. This was seen as just the pattern of her evil ways. However, it turned out that it was more so to draw you in.”

“And it did.” Grimm sighed. “I remember that night.”

So did Agatha. The night they bound her.

“Yes. You bound her and threw her into another realm, but she kept returning to Aureland, and you would throw her elsewhere. It wasn’t until King Darius took the throne of Aureland and his wife the throne of Orford that we discovered it wasn’t only the unique magic she wished to steal. She’d discovered something none of us knew.”

“And that was?”

Magnus gasped, all of their attention swinging to him. “There is a hidden portal into the Netherrealm in Aureland.”

Smithwick nodded, all attention returning to him like a pendulum swing. “Correct. It was so hidden that Queen Nuria never knew, but King Darius hunted Athania down one day and found her studying it.”

“All this time,” Agatha said quietly. “All this time we’d thought when she said she wanted to go home that it was wherever she was first thrown from.” She rubbed at her tired, sore eyes. “But she’d already been back there. She wanted to return here. To The Void.” Her mind tripped over the information, and she fidgeted in her seat. “But, once she had our power, magic would be gone.”

Smithwick sighed. “Or would it be hers? If she came here, to The Void, the powers of Lord and Lady Magie de la Nuit at her beck and call…”

The Primordial lords and ladies all shuddered at the thought. Looking between one another, the entire picture was finally painted for them.

“Thankfully, that has not happened,” Smithwick said. “Unfortunately, she made the most of her time stuck in the mortal realms. Athania desperately wanted the quill back, and found a way into your familial line via?—”

“Talan,” Grimm whispered, his voice strained.

“Talan,” Smithwick confirmed soberly. “She has a dark, twisted way of taking over bodies when the soul is near death. I don’t know the intricacies of why she took Talan’s body, other than the need for a new body and her desperation for the quill, but she certainly used it to alter the Grimoire in an attempt to alter History to her bidding.

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