Page 34 of Rose and Shadows
And then the portal was swallowing them.
It closed up before Cassius could reach it in time.
Cassius roared, his voice thundering through the area.
“No!” I yelled.“No!”
7
~Sylas~
All eyes were on me as I swept through the tunnels, my coat whipping behind me as I went.
I smiled to myself. The intent, curious, and reverent looks coming my way reminded me of my time at Wraeven Academy.
Being worshipped and feared in equal measure.
Couldn’t say I didn’t enjoy it.
From a non-ego stroking aspect, it was also a surefire sign that I’d stabilized, because they were responding to the power rolling off me.
All right, and my notorious reputation.
Being down here… I liked it.
More than that. I fucking relished it.
The Shadowed was an army but also a close-knit community.
They also had unparalleled reach and could go places no others could even hope to. They stood apart. Here, knowledge was everything, it ran the show. And I fucking well respected that. Big time. They did what needed to be done. And because of the way they were set up, they actuallycoulddo that.
They weren’t restricted—not in the way I had been when I’d tried to operate in a similar vein with my vigilante work.
This was the true underground. And I was enjoying it immensely. I was taking to it well.
Well, aside from the dark cloud hanging over me—being away from those I loved in Velra, Lazriel, and Cassius. Being apart had been particularly straining given that it had come right after they’d endured that brutal battle with my father. Not being there for them in the aftermath hadn’t been easy to swallow down.
But I also knew that this temporary parting was actually necessary. In order to stop that motherfucker from getting another shot at them, or doing anything like that ever again.
Until he was put down, we weren’t safe—no one was safe.
For now he was in the wind, though.
And, as much as I didn’t like the taste of unfinished business hanging in the air, strategically it was actually a positive thing. It was buying us time to determine the most optimal way to put him down—without suffering a fuck-ton of casualties and him purposely inflicting mass collateral damage on a slew of innocents.
With him having access to both black magic and Celestial power on top of his already highly dangerous necromantic abilities, it was no small—or easy—feat.
Especially when factoring in me needing to liberate both the portion of my necromantic core and Corvin’s magic from his possession.
My loves had informed me that Ryker was working with the supreme magical mind that was Ketheron to determine a way to spare hybrid kind from mass extermination as wasPuritas’plan for Morien to carry out, using Risen Reckoning like a mammoth extinction-level event.
I took a couple of gulps of my coffee this time, then gave a dramatic bow along with a theatrical wave for good measure atthose eyeing me, before I then pushed open the door to the suite I’d been assigned.
Back to work.
A whole lot of work.
I walked to the papers all over the desk, some on the bed. A lot of it was my magical research that I’d been conducting into both Morien’s return and the damage done to the Valley of the Dead that I’d been working on a couple of weeks ago. Remnant had retrieved it from my home, which had been warded by Cassius. I’d given him some of my blood to be able to pass through and he’d also had a little of Cornelius Martel’s magic, just in case.
