A Hero of Realms(57)

Before I could realize what was happening, the wall of the box that my head rested against gave way. Strong hands slipped inside and clutched my elbows, jerking me out of the oblong container. My back scraped against rough ground. There was a snap. My eyes shot to my feet just in time to see the side door close again—a side door in the box that I hadn’t even realized existed. They’d acted so fast and unexpectedly that Aisha hadn’t had a chance to slip out.

Five faces stared down at me, including Julie’s—directly above me. They gathered in a tight circle around me, so much so that I couldn’t see where we were. All I knew was that I was lying on a rocky surface, it was cold, and it was dim.

I motioned to leap to my feet when one of the male vampires—the same one who’d shot a tranquilizer dart into my neck—whipped out a needle and thrust it into my right ankle.

“No!” I hissed, kicking him aside. My foot made contact with his leg, just above his knee. The crack of bone pierced the air and he yelped, stumbling backward. But it was too late. Whatever substance he’d just injected into me was acting fast. My legs lost their feeling even as I tried desperately to stand up. They became paralyzed. Julie dipped down suddenly, pulling out a black sack from her robe.

I extended my claws and swiped upward. She dodged and whispered to the others, “Restrain his arms.” As the three vampires left grabbed hold of my arms and fought to press them to the ground, Julie forced my head upward and slipped the sack over it, blocking my vision.

“No!” I growled.

I was lifted once again, even as I continued to struggle and swipe. They carried me away from the box. Although my vision was gone, it became clearer than ever that they were climbing up a slope.

And then they stopped.

“Here,” Julie said.

They lowered me to the ground. Although my legs were still motionless, at least my arms were unhindered by their grasp. I reached up and removed the sack, able to take in my surroundings for the first time as the vampires stepped out of reach of my claws.

My heart skipped a beat. I forgot how to breathe as I took in a chillingly familiar sight.

The sky was shrouded with dark, murky clouds and tinged with an eerie, crimson hue. There was a complete absence of vegetation and sprawling all around me were black mountains with peaks as pointed as knives. I lay beneath one such peak, on a cluster of level rocks. A few feet away from me, the ground dipped. I propped myself up with my hands to glimpse a wide, black hole in the ground. A crater.

I’d seen this before.

I’d been here before.

This was the place of my first vision. The place Arron’s traitor wife had brought me as an infant. The place where the Elder had first left his mark on me. And now, where the Elder would reclaim me.

I twisted back to face the vampires who’d carried me here. My eyes locked with Julie’s. Her gaze was no longer stoic as I’d expected it to be—rather, there was almost a trace of… guilt? Regret?

“I’m sorry,” she mouthed. Her eyes lingered on me for several more seconds before she turned on her heel and raced away with the other vampires, disappearing from view over the edge of the mountain. Their footsteps echoed as they clambered down the rocks, fading into the distance.

My eyes traveled back to the crater.

It hit me only now that even though I was no longer in the box and I was unprotected by any jinni, I still didn’t feel the Elder rising up within me to take over my mind. I realized why. He had no more need to beckon me back to Cruor. I’d already arrived.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine why Julie would deliver me to the Elder’s doorstep when she knew what it would mean. Why she was on the Elder’s side, and apparently working for him all along. What she could possibly stand to gain from it. But it didn’t matter. I was here.

An icy wind swept up from nowhere.

“Benjamin.” Goosebumps ran along my skin as a low whisper echoed up from the crevice. Faint at first, as though it traveled up from the deepest chambers of the mountain. But gradually, it grew louder. And louder.

Even the parts of my body that weren’t paralyzed froze as the whisper drew nearer.

A crimson mist formed above the crater. The whisper no longer echoed. It hissed straight into my ears, as though just feet away from me. The reddish mist thickened and turned black. The chilling voice stopped repeating my name and instead said, “Welcome back.”

So this was where my journey had led me.

Hortencia’s initial prediction had been accurate after all. For all my fighting to change the fate she’d foretold, this was where it had brought me—right into its clutches.

As my arms jerked backward in a futile attempt to distance myself, my right hand knocked against a weight in my robe pocket. A weight that I hadn’t realized I still carried with me. My shaking hand dug into the pocket and withdrew the small vial Arron had given me outside Breccan’s cave. Although made of glass, it had miraculously survived all this time.