“If you could see your faces. Now let’s grab something to eat before we wither away to nothing.” Aerolus prodded Cadmus to get him moving, then added as if an afterthought, “Alandra only likes it rough now and then. But I find I have an aptitude for it.”
Which had me dumbfounded for the first time in forever.
As we tiredly walked back to the castle, I had to hand it to Aerolus.
You always had to watch the quiet ones.
Chapter 18
A Sad State of Affairs
Remir, Jonas’s best friend and a trusted Sarqua leader, waited until Jonas and the others left the hillside. He trailed the Storm Lords a short distance, then watched for his contact to appear. While Tanselm absorbed the dead bodies of Dark into her earth, a figure strode out of the wood line. In a hooded robe made of black fabric, the small figure might well have been a fictional Reaper from the Next.
If only, Remir thought tiredly. He was so ready to move on. Any more nights with Sin Garu and he’d start losing his mind. The blood Sin Garu took from him was no longer enough. Besides savaging his body, the Dark Lord had become the conduit for the demons ravaging Remir’s soul.
The hooded figure paused when he reached Remir, his innocence a surprising change from the zealots Remir had seen in the northern territory. The young man, having captured Remir’s attention, turned and walked back into the woods. The trees seemed to welcome the figure, a notable difference from the way nature greeted most of the Church members — with an open hostility Remir’s Darkness sensed.
“My master wants a word.” The churchman sounded shaky. He didn’t seem as comfortable around Darkness as his holy brothers. Strangely pleased that his partner in crime feared him, Remir played on his Dark energy. Willing himself to burn in truth, he chuckled at the young man’s fear.
With a gasp, the churchman pointed in an opposite direction before running back into the forest.
Snorting with contempt, Remir put out a psychic feeler and located the person he’d been sent to find. He walked through the forest, feeling more alive in his natural state, and wondered if an influx in his energy might burn off the demon touch lingering over his skin.
His cock ached as he recalled the baser acts Sin Garu had perpetrated, and he hastened to deal with his contact and get back to his master before the Dark Lord decided on more of the same.
“Here.” The deep voice was filled with arrogance.
Remir stopped and flowed back into a man’s flesh, not wanting his true self exposed to the evil seething in the Light Bringer traitor. Remir’s skin crawled in the churchman’s presence. Unlike the many people he’d met in the northern territory, this man stank of corruption. Here, in Tanselm’s heart, this misrepresentation of everything the Church of Illumination was supposed to be, stood a creature filled with malevolence.
Yet strength was there in the dark brown eyes that glittered with scorn. “Tell your master everything is going according to plan.”
Remir nodded, not trusting himself not to tear the man’s throat out. He’d been forced to turn against his people and Tanselm, but this holy leader, Ordinary Nohjen, had offered his services to Sin Garu.
“My spies are in place. The time is ripe for insurrection. The Light Bringers doubt their leaders. And with the Storm Lords away from the west this night, there’s no better time to bring down the throne. A minor obstacle, really, but once the overqueen is gone, the heart of the people’s resistance will fade as surely as Tanselm’s Light has been fading since the Dark stepped onto our lands.”
Remir stared in shock. He hadn’t known anything about a plot to kill Queen Ravyn. With her dead, he feared the Storm Lords would never rid their world of Sin Garu. There would be too much pain and chaos to wade through, obviously what Sin Garu expected.
His heart sank at the thought of allowing the twisted Dark Lord to win.
For months, he’d been forced to do Sin Garu’s bidding. Yet he’d always harbored a secret hope the Storm Lords would prevail, or at the very least, expose him for his part in Sin Garu’s work. Would that the Sarqua Djinn or Light Bringers kill him before he could do any permanent damage to the Storm Lords. If only the spell around him didn’t keep him so distant and quiet when around Jonas…
Remir stared hard at Nohjen, wondering how firm the zealot was in his convictions. Sin Garu’s spell prevented Remir from turning to his trusted comrades. Perhaps he could plant the seed of doubt in this man’s mind. He had to at least try.
“If you’re so revolted by Dark presence, why have anything to do with a Dark Lord? They don’t come much Darker than that.”
Nohjen shrugged. “Sacrifice is a constant in the world we live in. For Tanselm, we’ll do anything to preserve her constructs. The fact is that the land needs more energy — Dark energy. What we don’t need is so much filth staining the populace.”
“So you’re saying you’re taking the lesser of two evils? One Dark Lord instead of the many Djinn and Aellei ‘corrupting’ your world?” Was the man completely crazy?
The churchman sneered. “Exactly. Your kind pollutes the air we Light Bringers breathe. If we must deal with the Dark, at least we choose to deal with one being, and one of power, at that.” He gave Remir a disgusted look. “I hadn’t realized you Djinn possessed anything resembling intelligence under that black flame. But I’m not surprised it now burns blue. You creatures are always fucking anything that moves. Dark Lords too, hmm?”
Remir peered closer at the churchman, surprised the man could see through his flesh to the Djinn that burned in truth beneath, or that a Light Bringer knew how to read signs of Dark Lord taint.
He experienced another unfortunate surprise. Latent power blazed under a deliberately misleading guise. The man before him was no ordinary Light Bringer turned traitor, but a sorcerer who’d done a remarkable job of hiding his power. The knowledge was just another piece of bad news for this world needing more help than Remir could manage.
If Nohjen knew of such Dark magic, who knew what else the Church of Illumination understood? How vast was their knowledge? Remir had a feeling the Church’s deception went beyond one or two individuals to extend throughout their entire organization.
The Church of Illumination really was the threat Jonas thought it to be.
