Page 36 of Ruins of Magic
Hours later Valaria and Garron paced the room the imps had moved them to. Arion’s lifeless body laid out on a bed and covered in black roses. Valaria had spent the first two hours crying and now was losing patience quickly. The cruelty had been bad enough through the trials, but to leave them trapped in the room with Arion’s dead body was too much to process.
Garron hugged her for the hundredth time. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have pushed him out of the way and drank it in his place.”
“Stop that. You know that’s not what he would have wanted,” she insisted.
Arion opened his eyes and Valaria screamed in shock.
“Where am I? My head is pounding,” he said.
“What? How are you even here?” Garron asked. “You’re dead.”
“I am?”
“Yeah, well, we thought so. I think the imps are preparing your funeral or something.”
“Where are those little rodents?”
As if on queue one of them walked in and dropped the dead flowers he was carrying as he screamed. “You’re alive?”
“Looks like it. Now where’s your leader?”
He scurried off quickly and soon returned with a small group of imps.
The leader looked at him curiously.
“You did not hesitate to drink from the goblet.”
“And you lied. You said it was poison.”
“It was.”
“So how am I still alive then?”
The imp sighed. “It is only magic, Arion. A sacrifice pure of heart would counter it causing you to only slumber. It had never happened in all of the four millennium we have documented. You and your friends are free to go, my prince. You have my word. We will not interfere with you again.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Chapter14
The three friends stood staring at each uncertain it if was just another trick or not.
“I’m telling you, you’re free to leave here,” the imp informed them again.
“Not without the idol.” Arion said.
“The idol?”
“Yes, somewhere in this castle is a small idol of your leader, the dark sorcerer, Ryze. I must return with it.”
“That would be certain death, Arion. Please reconsider. You are very powerful and pure of heart, but only the purest magic can counter the darkness surrounding the idol. To neutralize it enough for you to even touch it would likely kill you.”
“That’s fine. If I neutralize it, can my friends return with it?”
“We won’t stop them, but I am warning you, that thing was designed to kill. I can not protect you from it.”
“I’m not asking you to, just point me in the right direction.
