Page 94 of Death Warden
Silence falls over us like a blanket. Tobias takes another sip of his tea and I curl my fingers into fists to stop myself from knocking the damned cup out of his hand. I glance at Spectre and note the tension in his jaw. Yeah, he wants to do the same.
As if sensing our irritation, Tobias carefully places his cup on the table and sits back in his seat.
“What Adi knows about her family is only half the truth. The rest…the rest was hidden. Forgotten. Locked away. But in it we might find the key to saving her.”
“Tell us,” Logan demands. “Who is this Dralos, really.”
“We don’t know,” Tobias says. “No one knows who or what he truly is. Not even the three young mages who summoned him from wherever he came from.” He moves to pick up his cup, but Spectre nudges it away from him.
“Talk first. Tea later,” he says.
Tobias blinks rapidly, then nods. “Very well.” He tucks in his chin. “I suppose we should begin at the beginning. The Blackmore, Thorne, and Crescent families weren’t always powerful bloodlines. There was a time when they were mages just like anyone else. There were necromancers in their bloodlines, a rare species, but there were none who required a flesh-and-bone conduit.” He pauses to gather his thoughts. “Anyway, a long time ago, two young women and a young man came together to change the fate of their families. Loralie Blackmore, Thomas Thorne, and Gretta Crescent. They attended the same academy and their love of the darker arts brought them together. There is no record of the ritual they used to summon the entity that we now know as Dralos, but summon him they did. We know that a trade was made. Everlasting power in exchange for their life forces. From what I know, they believed that once they had power, they’d be successful in sending the entity back from whence it had come.”
“They were wrong,” Logan says.
Tobias’s smile is mirthless. “Yes. Very wrong. They conducted a ritual they believed had banished Dralos, and for a time all was quiet. But Dralos came back to collect. What they had failed to realize was that the deal gave them power everlasting by granting it to their bloodline, not just to the individual. Once they had procreated and the bloodlines were secure, Dralos returned to collect his prizes.”
“He killed them?” Spectre asks.
“Two of them, yes. Thomas and Gretta died, but Loralie was saved. The Thornes, Crescents, and Blackmores had long become close, and after Thomas’s death, Gretta and Loralie had researched anew to try to find a way to stop Dralos. They came across an obscure spell, one that would strip him of his power, weakening his hold on this mortal plane, and allow them to send him back. Gretta was killed before they could deploy the plan, and Loralie used herself as bait. They stripped Dralos of some of his power and completed the ritual to send him back. Or at least they thought they had.”
“He came back and killed Amy, didn’t he?” Dax says.
Tobias nods. “Accidents occurred. Powerful members of the three families began dying. The families realized that Dralos had never been banished. He’d held on somehow. Managed to sustain his loss of power in some way.”
“By taking souls.” My lip curls. “He called himself the trader. He offered boons in exchange for life force and in some cases, souls.”
Tobias blinks up at me. “Yes…yes, that makes sense.”
“You locked him away, though,” Logan prompts. “Adi’s amulet.”
“Not Adi’s amulet, Dralos’s. Taken from him centuries ago. A part of him which allowed us to bind him and to hide him away, locking him in a place between worlds.”
Oh, God… The voice Adi heard in the spirit realm. “You tied him to the spirit realm, didn’t you?”
Tobias looks up sharply. “How did you know?”
I fill him in on Adi’s experience, on the dreams and the empty ghosts, on our theory that her being here in Frostgate makes him stronger.
Tobias runs a hand down his face. “I knew sending Adi here was a risk, but it was my only option to buy her time. The accidents outside of Frostgate, though…They couldn’t have been Dralos. There’s no way he would be strong enough to exert his influence so far from the amulet binding him.”
My mind whirrs. “He’s on the spirit plane. With souls desperate to possess people. Not hard to imagine him recruiting some minions.”
“The acolyte theory,” Spectre says. “Yes. He must have had help.”
“And now the Thorne and Crescent necromancers are dead,” Tobias says. “Adi is the only one keeping that lock active. The strain will kill her. She needs her conduit. Without him…” Doubt flickers across his face.
Logan sits forward. “No. There has to be another way to stop this guy.” His eyes narrow. “Where’s his body?”
Tobias looks up sharply. “I never said there was a body left.”
Logan’s lips curl in a knowing smile. “Destroying the body would have released his spirit, making it harder for you to tether it to a locking spell.”
Yes. That makes sense. I knew telling him what Adi had explained to me about souls and bodies would come in handy.
Tobias sighs. “Yes. There is a body, but I swear to you, I have no idea where it is. That information died with Amy. The Blackmores dealt with the body. The secret passed from necromancer to necromancer. Amy died before she was able to pass it to Adi.”
“Even if we do find the body, what would we do?” Dax asks. “How would we stop him?”
