The Oracle Stone (The Windermere Tales Book 1) by Talli L. Morgan

Author:Talli L. Morgan [Morgan, Talli L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-02-01T06:00:00+00:00

14

TAJA

TAJA’S MIND REFUSED to catch up with what he’d just seen. His head was a whirl, and his body trembled with the aftermath of the magic that’d just drowned him. It was impossible. It was wrong. That was not magic, but something so much worse.

And now Lilya was gone, and in her place…

“Who are you?” Jekku pulled away from Taja and knelt on the ground beside the young Elshalan. They were curled on their side as though they were simply resting, their face tranquil. They had lightly tanned skin, freckles on their cheeks and nose, and hair so pale blond it was almost white. Gold rings decorated their ears from lobe to pointed tip, and they wore silver rings on their slender hands.

They didn’t react to Jekku’s gentle prodding of their bare shoulder. They wore only a thin white robe wrapped around their body; Taja took off his cloak and set it over them.

Jekku looked up at him helplessly. His eyes betrayed his panic. “I don’t know what to do. What… What just happened?”

“I think the stone finally woke up,” Taja said. It was the only way he could explain this. Someone had gotten out, and Lilya had been swallowed.

Jekku kept his hand on the Elshalan’s shoulder. “I… This is going to sound crazy, Taja, but I feel like I know them. I think I’ve… seen them.”

“How?”

“The stone showed them to me.”

Taja narrowed his eyes. “Jekku, is there something you’re not telling me?”

He winced, chewing his lip for a second before he looked up again. “I… I have two pieces of the stone.”

Taja wasn’t surprised, just unsure why Jekku hadn’t mentioned it before now. It certainly explained what had just happened; all four pieces, finally reunited, now powerful enough to open and release someone… and trap someone else. Taja didn’t know if that was a one-time cataclysmic reaction to the four pieces joining for the first time in centuries, or if that was something that could happen again, but if the stone could open on its own, they were about to have a whole new mess of problems.

“Ebris gave me one of the pieces,” Jekku said. He pulled another necklace out of his shirt and held it up. An opal ring dangled on the thin silver chain. Taja knew it even from here; its magic still hummed in his blood.

Taja absently rubbed his hands together. The dagger, the pendant, the ring. Then where was the fourth?

As if he’d read his mind, Jekku gently took one of the Elshalan stranger’s hands and unfolded their fingers. Resting in their palm was a small, opalescent figurine of a howling wolf.

Jekku looked up. “It’s here. The fourth piece.”

“Don’t touch it,” Taja said. He stepped closer and carefully took the figurine from the Elshalan’s hand. The magic within sent a shock through him, nearly making him drop it, but he tucked it into a pocket on the inside of his tunic. Even still, he felt its heat through his shirt. “We have to keep the pieces separated.

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