Page 133 of Vasmora

“I am Wulric.” The mage bowed his head, then led them through a maze of corridors lit by stone sconces. As he lifted one of the glowing torches from its base, his thumb twitched. A strange spasm of movement.

Subtle, but Zevander noticed.

Zevander glanced around the forest, eyes scanning over what little he could see through the trees, before returning his attention to the vision, in which the mage had led them to a door that opened on what appeared to be a king’s tomb, with a black sarcophagus centered in the room.

Zevander frowned at Akmyrios’s presence there, those mutilated eyes he remembered from the night of The Becoming Ceremony, when the mage had attempted to kill Maevyth, veiled by cloth. Beside him stood a young boy, perhaps no more than thirteen, with silver hair and ghostly white skin.

“Faolan?” Lothare frowned, tipping his head.

“You know him?” Zevander asked.

“The boy, yes. He was abandoned by his mother. Found him in the woods. We raised him as our own for years, until he just disappeared one day.” Lothare shook his head. “How did he entangle himself in all of this?”

“That your fearless leader would send the two of you in his stead is an insult,” Akmyrios chided in the vision.

Andalone chuckled. “Or perhaps he isn’t as foolish as you seem to imagine.” The mercenary waved his hand. “I’m told you have something to show us.”

Hands clenched to fists, the mage hobbled toward a shadowed corner of the tomb, where he lifted an object that he carried back toward the Wrathborne and raised it into the light. Contained by an enclosed glass lantern huddled a creature whose long snout, small ears, and beady eyes suggested it might’ve once been a rat. Its four ordinarily petite legs had elongated to twice its size, segmented and bent around its body. Its pink hands and feet had grown claws, and sharp fangs protruded from its mouth. A black exoskeleton gleamed in the flickering light, the sight of it churning a sick feeling in Zevander’s guts.

The plague.

Andalone and his companion stepped closer, and the creature slammed itself into the glass, its fangs spraying fluid that sizzled against the barrier in curls of white smoke.

“What you are looking at is proof that the plague has somehow crossed the barrier.” Akmyrios set the contained creature onto the surface of the sarcophagus and backed himself away. “Soon, all of Aethyria will crawl with these grotesque mutations. No creature of this world will be spared. They will feed on us, draw our blood magic, and every mancer who becomes infected will strengthen the plague.”

Andalone’s attention remained fixed on the creature. “How do we stop this?”

“There is no stopping it,” Akmyrios said, his voice impassive and resigned. “Dorjan is dying. Upon his last breath, the curse will break, the Umbravale will fall, and Aethyria will become the same hellscape as the mortal lands.”

“You’ve been to Mortasia?”

“One of our own lived amongst the mortals.” Annoyance colored Akmyrios’s tone.

“What is the point of this meeting?” the other Wrathborne asked.

“The girl. Bring me the mortal girl. Her blood can strengthen the Umbravale.”

Andalone scoffed. “How do we keep the prince breathing? That seems to be the more important matter.”

Akmyrios clasped his fingers together and stepped around the sarcophagus. “Listen carefully to what I tell you and be sure to carry this message back to your beloved master. Dorjan will die, and King Sagaerin, already loathed by his people, will be known as a traitor to all mancers. He’ll be executed for inciting a plague through the blood of his own son. However, Pestilios can be stopped. It is written in tomes as ancient as our beginnings. The amulet is the god’s prison, and he can be sent back through the royal blood of a firstborn son.”

“Evowar.”

“Come now. We know King Jeret’s firstborn is not the child who resides in Gildspire.”

Keiryan lurched toward the mage. “Are you suggesting our own Lothare be sacrificed?”

“Sealing the amulet doesn’t require his life. Only his blood. The first-born’s blood is most potent. It carries ancestral magic that dies as we age. Imagine if your master becomes the hero to all of Aethyria. Jeret will be forced to acknowledge his existence. Perhaps even honor it. We restore the Umbravale with the septomir, and our world survives.”

While Akmyrios prattled on in the vision, Zevander gave a subtle glance around the camp, wondering how quickly he could turn every one of them to ash.

“Seems you’ve given this quite a bit of thought.” A note of skepticism lingered in Andalone’s tone when he finally spoke.

Akmyrios bristled. “Centuries, I’ve studied countless tomes,” he fumed. “This plague can be contained. There will be casualties, but our world will be a better place because of it.”

Andalone stared a moment longer, then offered a terse nod. “I will carry your message.”

The image faded, and Andalone pushed to his feet before Lothare, head still bowed. “My liege, might I speak with you alone?”