Chapter Thirty-three

Lorelle

Lorelle shivered as she watched the dragon go, barely able to comprehend she was still alive. She had the Plunnos. She could search for Rhenn now, but…

Guilt and hope warred within her. She had what she needed, what she’d come for, but at what cost? Zaith was dead. He’d screamed her name as his own cloak devoured him at the dragon’s command. The dragon had promised one of them would live and one would die.

But the dragon had also spoken in riddles. Zaith had screamed, but was he really dead? The cloak had balled itself up just like the first time she’d seen him teleport on the dock in Usara.

Was that the horrible death the dragon had promised? Or had the dragon simply taken hold of the cloak’s magic and teleported Zaith elsewhere? Could he still be alive?

If he was, she had to look for him, didn’t she? To find out if he was all right?

She looked back into the yellow glow of the cave. The Thuros was there. Rhenn was there.

She sprinted back inside, her feet flying over the rough rock. She skidded to a stop before the mountain of treasure surrounded by its giant braziers of natural light. To her left, the long, rough-hewn staircase leading up the cavern wall stretched into the flickering shadows.

She ran up the stairs, taking them three at a time until she stood breathless before the Thuros. Blue, brown, green, red, and black swirled in the archway…

“Take me to Rhenn,” she whispered, clenching the Plunnos in her fist. She squeezed her eyes shut and envisioned her friend in that last second before she had vanished into the swirling colors.

Take me to Rhenn…

She opened her eyes and lobbed the coin at the swirling colors just as she’d seen Nhevaz do. It clinked, rebounded unerringly back into Lorelle’s hand.

No portal opened. The colors simply continued swirling. Her heart sank.

She clenched her teeth, walked forward, and slammed her fist against the solid colors—

Her hand passed through like it was water, just as Nhevaz’s body had passed through.

She cried out in joy and charged into the colors.

The swirling lights slithered over her and she felt like she was being dipped in a vat of oil. It saturated her hair, slid around her neck, arms, breasts, belly, and legs like she was suddenly naked.

Then she was through. She fell to her knees, gasping. She looked down at herself, expecting to find herself stripped and dripping in oil—

But she was dry. Her black Nox clothes were exactly as they had been.

She shivered, then looked up to see where she was. The swirling colors of the Thuros illuminated nothing, but the room was shrouded in darkness. A natural darkness, not the deep dark of the noktum. But normal darkness now seemed like twilight to her noktum-enhanced eyes.

She stood atop a dais with shallow steps leading down to a circular room with stone walls. In the center was a giant pillar with a door on it, and she recognized it all. This was the basement room of the Usaran palace, right back where she’d started.

“No…” She looked around helplessly. For a moment, she had hoped this was simply a similar basement, perhaps in another kingdom, built in exactly the same fashion.

But she knew this room too well. The two gates barred the tunnel to the noktum where she and Rhenn had fled a decade ago, where Rhenn, Khyven, Vohn, and she had emerged mere months ago to take back the kingdom.

Lorelle spun about and faced the swirling colors again. She imagined her friend, but this time she pictured only Rhenn. Not Nhevaz, and not this room. Just Rhenn, surrounded by a golden light.

“Take me to Rhenn!”

She threw the coin, it bounced back to her hand, and she charged into the Thuros. Oil slithered over her body, through her hair, around every inch of her—

She gasped and stumbled through, once more dry and clothed and—

“No!”

She was on the landing overlooking the dragon’s horde of gold. She spun about, desperately threw the coin, and leapt into the Thuros again while shouting Rhenn’s name.

It took her back to the room in Usara.

Lorelle hurled the Plunnos away. It clinked off the center wall and fell to the ground, rolling noisily around and around until it settled.

She collapsed to her knees at the base of the dais.

“Rhenn…” she murmured, heartbroken.

After everything she had still failed. She’d found the Plunnos. She had used the Thuros, but she couldn’t get to Rhenn.

She glanced at the door to the stairway. Her heart ached as she thought about climbing those steps and returning to the queen’s meeting chamber to find Vohn, Slayter, and Khyven arguing about how to run the kingdom.

She couldn’t go up there. She might have lost control of her quest for Rhenn, but her other friends—her family—were still safe here in Usara. That’s where they had to remain. The moment she told them she had a Plunnos, they would insist on helping her, going with her, and she wouldn’t risk them coming to the noktum. Zaith’s interest in her had protected her, and now her bond to the Dark protected her. But her friends were still just Lightlanders. They didn’t belong in the noktum.

She glanced back at the Thuros. Zaith knew about the other continents. He knew about the Plunnos.

And he might still be alive.

She retrieved the giant coin and, as she had expected, there were no marks on it from where she’d hurled it against the wall. As Zaith had promised when they’d first met, the Plunnos appeared to be unaffected by anything she or the mortal world could do to it.

She ascended the dais, flicked the coin at the swirling colors, and, once more, stepped into the swirling lights.