Page 42 of Darkening Truth
“It’s not your fault, like Rival said, no one seems to know,” Mayhem tells him.
“So, what do we do now?” Reaper asks. “We need the book in order to help us save the trapped people, so the realm doesn’t die and throw off the balance, but we have no idea where it is.”
“I recognise the name,” I say, my eyebrows drawing down heavily. I was hoping that X would know because I can’t explain how or why I recognised the name of the book.
“You do?” Storm asks, sounding surprised.
I nod and explain, “Yeah, but I can’t for the life of me remember why I recognise it.”
Before anyone can reply and ask more questions, magic builds in the room.
“What the fuck?” Loki asks, as he drops down into a defensive crouch like the rest of us.
“A portal is forming,” Khaos replies, looking confused. “It doesn’t feel like it’s a threat.”
“Fucking hell, is that a Warrior Games portal?” Zev exclaims as the familiar swirl of magic builds in the middle of the room.
I have to admit that’s what it looks like, and surprise floods me. I don’t know why, but I had sort of assumed that we weren’t involved in the Warrior Games anymore, but if Zev is right and this is one of those portals, then I was obviously wrong. Which just brings up a whole slew of questions.
Just like before, we have no choice about whether we’re going through it or not, we just get pulled in.
My vision is thankfully not clouded by magic at all this time, unlike when we got pulled into the God Realm.
Where we have ended up is even more of a surprise than it was to realise that a Warrior Games portal was taking us somewhere.
“Holy shit, we’re back at the academy, aren’t we?” Zev asks in shock.
“Yep, that’s what it looks like,” I say, as I look around the room that is only mildly familiar to me, but thankfully has all of my creatures in it. They all look just as confused as I feel, but I’m really glad that they’re all here and didn’t get left in the Shadowlands. Poca most likely would have brought them all here as soon as he realised this was where I was, but thanks to recent events, I know that they would have most likely panicked before they worked that out.
“Khaos and Hades aren’t here,” I say with an edge to my voice, I don’t like that they aren’t with us.
“That makes sense, to be honest, they aren’t a part of the Warrior Games,” Rival says, although he doesn’t look too happy about it either.
“I didn’t think we still were,” Reaper adds with an unhappy grimace.
“I’m sure that they’ll turn up here if they can figure out where we are,” Storm says hopefully.
“Can’t we just leave and head back to the Shadowlands?” Mayhem asks, “It feels really weird to be here.”
“I agree,” Loki says. “I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel like this is a place that we should be anymore. Which is strange in itself.”
Zev shakes his head as his eyes flash white, “There’s a reason why we’ve been brought back here now. We need to stay. I think if we were to leave, we would just be brought straight back by the portals. I don’t really know why it’s so important, that’s not clear. The whole thing is pretty murky, actually.”
“Well, that answered that then,” Storm says. “I guess we’re staying.”
“Oh, I can see what happened to Magnus,” I say suddenly as the thought occurs to me.
“Why? What happened to Magnus?” Mayhem asks, looking confused.
I frown, “I thought I mentioned it. When we were in the Underworld, just before we got pulled through the portal into the God Realm, I saw him.” I stop talking, swallowing thickly, I haven’t quite come to terms with what that means yet.
“I’m sorry,” Kill says gently, reaching the same conclusion that I have.
I just nod in acknowledgement. I don’t want to get into it right now, but I do want to know what happened and who I have to kill. It’s been a rather long time since I’ve been able to blow anyone up.
The guys all seem to sense that I don’t want to talk about it, because they move the conversation on.
“I guess we should figure out what’s going on around here then, until we know for certain why we’re back?” Rival suggests. His eyes light up, “The goodnews is that this is one of the best stocked libraries in the realm, so I might be able to find the book. Although I would be very surprised if the book is here.”
