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Chapter 10: Wraiths part 1

If he could use realmheart while not being of the Indrath clan, he would have to die.

The Librarian shrugged. "I think that would be a spoiler, but you'll learn soon. It's one of his runes, though."

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'This definitely seems kind of sus to me,' Regis thought, sharing in the same nervousness that quickened my heartbeat.

I stepped beneath one of the arches leading toward the portal room, resting my hand on the cold stone pillar. Of course. It's a trap, after all. Even if I defeated whatever enemy was giving off such an awful killing intent in front of me, there were still the enemies behind me to consider. I didn't know if the Lances could hold the line. If it took me too long...

The pillar crunched in my fist, which came away full of pinkish dust and stone shards. But what other choice do we have?

Hurling the mess to the ground, I took a step forward. And then another. And with each cautious step, I pushed down another question and source of anxiety. The truest way to protect those I cared about was to make any fight as swift and decisive as possible and to do that, I couldn't be shackled by my own uncertainty.

At the end of the tunnel, there was a matched set of arched openings carved of some light red stone. They opened into a huge, empty cave that surrounded the thirty-foot-high, fifty-foot-wide portal frame, which provided enough space to stage a small army if necessary. Columns of gray and red rock held up a series of balconies that encircled the cave thirty feet up.

The room was lit by the natural glow of the still active portal.

My eyes moved quickly from the portal's opaque screen of undulating energy the four dwarven corpses bleeding out in front of it, their bodies impaled by black metal spikes, and then to the five figures spread out throughout the chamber.

Within me, Regis trembled with a mixture of anticipation and nervous energy. I felt Uto's memories bubbling up unbidden in Regis's mind and bleeding over into my own. I saw the sons and daughters of the basilisks who followed Agrona from Epheotus, the interplay of asuran and human magic fine-tuned over a hundred generations. I knew what these beings were. Windsom had told me about them, long ago.

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"Lies. I never spoke to a lesser like Grey." Windsom denied that he ever did that, but there was a doubt in his mind.

"That's unless Grey is..." He trailed off, giving it a bit more thought. He looked at Kezess for an answer, and Kezess nodded.

Windsom and Kezess knew that Grey was Arthur.

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'The Wraiths,' Regis thought, giving a name to Agrona's hidden half-blood soldiers.

"You must be my welcoming committee," I said curtly, taking in each figure.

The foremost was a tall, broad-shouldered man. Flowing locks of earth-brown hair tumbled around thick, corkscrew horns that stuck up several inches from the top of his head. He wore red chainmail under black half-plate armor that glowed with protective runes.

His dismissive eyes met mine. "We are here to eliminate a threat, not engage in witless banter."

"Oh come on, Richmal, we hardly ever get to have any fun," one of the others said, whipping thick blond braids around his head and staring at me with hungry eyes. "If it is true that this one killed Cadell, we should have some fun with him before releasing him to the oblivion of death." Like Richmal, this second man also had blood-red eyes and onyx horns. His curled out and down from the sides of his head, nearly touching again under his chin.