Page 11 of Harbinger
“Jasper is right,” Victor said quietly at his shocked look. “We both sensed it when we saw the pictures from the devastated areas. The bodies of the sick and the dead are marked with putrid wounds and blemishes reminiscent of something you might see in the Nine Hells.”
Blood pounded heavily in Cassius’s skull at their warning. He scowled, his nails biting into his palms.
This has to be Elios’s doing! Only he would think of something so terrible!
A commotion outside the door distracted him. He stiffened when he recognized the soul cores drawing closer. Morgan’s eyes similarly widened.
Galliad Fenhorn and Cedric Esteban stormed inside Strickland’s office, Eden and Brianna Monroe in their wake.
6
“Eden?”Cassius mumbled, stunned.
The young woman looked like a completely different person compared to the last time he’d met her. Gone was the reserved and nervous girl who had thought herself an outcast of the magic community she lived in and had long wished to escape. In her stead was a bright-eyed, confident mage who’d finally come into her powers.
Born with a bloodcursed soul core that should have killed her while she was still a young child, Eden’s magic had been secretly bound by her mother Brianna and a group of powerful Hexa mages upon her birth. It was Elios’s machinations that had caused the young girl’s latent abilities to awaken and ended in her claiming the Bloodcursed Devilwood Summoning Staff, one of a number of divine artifacts that had sealed Chaos in the Abyss, as her weapon.
Eden had once remarked that it was the other way around. That it was the staff that had deemed her powerful enough to wield it and granted her permission to bind their magic cores together.
The weapon lay snugly against the base of the young woman’s throat in its tree-shaped pendant form and was doing its best to look innocuous. Cassius was not fooled. He could tell the thing was sentient and watching them all closely.
Eden’s frown cleared when she saw Cassius. Pleasure brought a surge of color to her cheeks. “Cassius!”
She strode past Cedric and hugged Cassius tightly.
Cassius closed his arms around her, his surprise fading to affection. “It’s great to see you, Eden. You look well.”
She pulled back and smiled at him. “It’s good to see you too.”
Cedric failed to disguise his chagrin at the sight of his fiancée clasping another man in her arms.
“You should do something about your girlfriend,” Morgan grumbled at the second prince of the Dryad kingdom.
“That’s rich coming from a guy whose boyfriend keeps innocently seducing every man, woman, and otherworldly under the sun,” Cedric retorted.
“He’s not wrong,” Brianna drawled.
Julia and Zach bit back a smile.
Morgan’s eyes shrank to slits. “May I remind you that I’m your superior?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cedric muttered.
The fact that Morgan was the de facto king of Ivory Peaks seemed to have no influence on the prince’s attitude toward the demigod.
Morgan muttered something under his breath before casting a shrewd look at Galliad and Brianna. “I doubt the two of you are here for a social visit.”
Brianna’s expression sobered.
A muscle jumped in Galliad’s jawline. “You would be right.”
A fresh wave of dread wound through Cassius at the older man’s expression. He’d never seen the former Head Mage of the Dryad royal court this agitated before.
Officially, Galliad ran a rundown pawn and gift shop in Chinatown. Unofficially, he was the diplomatic liaison between Earth and Ivory Peaks, and Cedric’s guard when the prince visited the human realm. Which was often these days, what with Cedric having technically already married the only bloodcursed mage in existence.
“What’s wrong, Galliad?” Morgan said guardedly.
Galliad took a shallow breath. “I bring a warning from Regina.” He paused, his tone hardening. “And a direct plea from the Dryad royal family to our kingdom’s true sovereign.”
