“How do you know this to be true?” he asked. “If the Djinn were here, we’d surely have been attacked by now. Since our arrival we’ve been on our guard but have detected no magic. How then do the Djinn survive? Especially since they cannot live under the light of day?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Arim didn’t look happy at the admission. “But it may be the light from this world isn’t strong enough to combat their darkness, or perhaps they only venture out at night. At any rate, once I learned of this new threat, I discussed it with your mother.”
When he didn’t say more, Darius swore. “And?”
“And she still thinks you’re safer here than at home.”
Unable to stop himself, Darius lashed out in a rage. His anger found the coffeepot, shattering glass over the counter. With a narrowing of his eyes, Marcus cooled the glass with a sudden mist. “But what do you think?” he asked the sorcerer.
“For once I disagree with her. You’re in a greater danger here. Despite the lack of magic on this plane, enough exists to support the Djinn’s presence, thus enough magic exists here to hurt you.”
“But our affai?”
Darius rolled his eyes; Aerolus had to ask.
“They are here. I wanted to give you more time, time to court them properly, to test their mettle before you brought them home. But I fear we no longer have that luxury.” Arim retrieved a necklace bearing a diamond-like crystal from inside his tunic.
Aerolus caught his breath. Marcus stared in amazement. But Darius sneered. How typical of Arim to make things as difficult as possible.
“A Knowing Crystal,” Cadmus murmured.
“A tool that would have helped us when we first landed here a year ago.” Darius glared. “Why the hell would you have kept this from us knowing how much we’re needed at home?”
Arim ignored him and nodded at Cadmus. “Yes, a Knowing Crystal. I’m not sure how well it will work here, but it still contains the energy and memories of all the Storm Lords before you. Simply wear it around your neck and when you have found your affai, you will know.”
“But with only one crystal, three of us will be in the dark concerning potential mates,” Aerolus pointed out.
Darius set nearby curtains on fire, uncaring of Arim’s displeasure. “Why didn’t you give us this before we left, you bastard?”
Arim stilled. Then he frowned—a very bad sign. The temperature around the group grew freezing and the fire immediately faded. “Watch your tone with me, Darius. Kin or not, no one talks to a Valens like that without severe repercussions.”
Beyond care, Darius stepped forward, only to be held back by his brothers.
“This isn’t helping,” Marcus murmured in his ear. “He won’t kill you, but he can make your life miserable.”
“More than it is now?” Darius growled. But he saw the danger in Arim’s stance, understood the need to curb his temper and deal with the situation they now faced. He would brood about Arim’s deception later. Nodding a forced apology to his uncle, he nevertheless felt relief when the room temperature returned to normal.
“Aerolus,” Arim said, “in response to your worry that only one of you may use the crystal at one time, thereby putting the other three of you in jeopardy of bypassing your mates, I have an answer for you. Watch the crystal.” He dangled the crystal and all watched as it began to rotate, spinning faster and faster the longer Arim held it.
Arim began an incantation and his eyes grew impossibly dark. Darius felt the power run from Arim to him, both thrilling and unnerving. He could feel the crystal pulling at him, seeking something within him. But he was helpless to look away from its crystalline beauty. After a timeless pause, his gaze slid to Arim, the sorcerer’s black stare leeching his will until he swayed on his feet. Only when Arim blinked did Darius’ frailty pass.
Uncomfortable with Arim’s power, he turned to see what his brothers thought and saw all eyes on him. “What?” he asked, discomfited to have shown any weakness. In all the myths surrounding the Knowing Crystals, he’d never heard of anyone suffering ill effects from their presence. He turned suspiciously to Arim.
“Darius shall wear it first.” So saying, Arim placed the necklace around Darius’ throat. Before he could protest, Darius watched as the crystal turned a blood red, then burned itself through his shirt and painlessly into his chest in the shape of a red diamond.
“How does it come off?” Darius traced the new tattoo, a strange feeling of urgency filling him as his fingers lingered over the crystal now embedded in his skin.
“It will remove itself after a true joining has occurred, then pass to the next in need.”
“You mean after Darius bonds with his affai, one of us will be chosen to find our supposed mate,” Marcus said matter-of-factly, staring at his oldest brother. “Hell, we’ll die in this realm.” He groaned.
“Very funny.” Darius looked up to see a flash of satisfaction pass over Arim’s face. Distrust rose swiftly, followed by a certain realisation. “That was more than the Knowing Crystal. What exactly did you do to me?”
“Nothing you haven’t already done to yourself.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Anger festered. But the crystal muddied his mind, turning his anger into a burning need to find…someone. Someone to fill the aching void growing within him.
“It means you’ve already met your mate,” Aerolus answered, worry shadowing his pale grey eyes. “Now you have to find her, join with her, and convince her to give up everything she knows to live with you—in a place she won’t believe exists—forever.”
Silence filled the room and Arim vanished as if he’d never been there. They all stared at one another before Cadmus broke the silence.
“We’re doomed.”
Samantha mewed softly, terror shaking her sweating body in the icy hotel room. Turning her head from side to side, she tried to shake free from the nightmare gripping her. Instead, hellish images bombarded her, and with eyes wide open and unseeing, she stared into the maw of an uncertain actuality…
Like a blurred image that has yet to be sharpened into reality, the cloaked figure shimmered as it moved over once blazing fields of tall, white grass. Whatever the figure touched, it destroyed. Grasses withered into decayed mounds of putrid pulp over reddish grey soil—no longer black and rich with nutrients. Now the soil nourished nothing but decay.
Leaving a blatant trail of decomposition in its wake, the hazy figure floated into the flames of a dimensional gateway into a heretofore-unseen realm.
But like an omniscient navigator, Samantha watched everything unfold with burning eyes, unable to look away from the evil abundant in her dream.
The indistinct features of the cloaked creature sharpened into a grotesque mask as it lowered its hood. No longer obscured in a world not its own, the creature thrived in its homeworld, in the dark shadows between the light.
Her eyes followed the sickly yellow claws protruding from frayed sleeves that still clung to its hood. Bony hands made it look like a living skeleton, appropriate for the dark coffin of a room it had entered. She followed the hands, soon unable to look away from the horrible sight of the creature’s face.
A misshapen head devoid of hair sat like a lump of melted wax on a papery thin neck. The creature had two ears, each pointed at the tips and overly long, sitting high on either side of its head. And its head…she shivered. Its head was a mottled accumulation of black and sallow bruises, with two huge, round white eyes sitting over a gaping mouth filled with rows of sharp, black teeth.