Umbra by Rae Else

Author:Rae Else [Else, Rae]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781916904941
Publisher: Anchorite Publishing

15

NOBLE BLOOD

The night’s chill waned. Matteo reckoned it was some time past dawn. Only vamp guards had brought him food the last few days. It had been four days since Piera’s visit. Clearly, headquarters had been too full of Triodians once more for her to come see him. Yet every time his door opened, hope swelled in his chest as he wondered if it could be her. Piera had pulled him out of the void that had consumed him for six weeks. She’d enlightened him as to what was happening outside of these four walls. Yet it made him greedier for news than ever.

Frustration pummeled through him daily. Matteo felt his confinement grating on him more and more. So when his door opened and the scent of evergreen washed over him again, a smile broke across his face as he drank in Piera. The absence of a tray was the first sign that something wasn’t right. Last time, she’d heaped the pile of bread and cheese on his plate as if she knew how much he needed it. He reckoned that extra food had gone a long way to making up the deficit he’d had of late. But still…the interim days had been even more meager than usual. He’d barely had the energy to shift yesterday—to carve the mark in the floor with his claw. His stomach gnawed at itself as he saw she came empty-handed.

Yet, when her troubled eyes held his, all thought of hunger fled.

“What’s wrong?” He stood up.

Her pale, tense expression whipped up his thoughts. Immediately, the familiar panic that Jess had been captured seized him. So many nights he woke from nightmares of her being dragged away from him, towards the center of this building, to the Between, to her death…

“You were right,” Piera announced. “Jess wasn’t responsible for the Triodia invasions. Theodore of Enodia killed his High Mage last night. Word is that he and his followers killed a handful of Enodians last night. They killed them and tethered their souls.”

Shock ricocheted through Matteo. “That’s impossible! Para souls don’t remain after death.”

Piera’s expression grew graver. “This mage, Theodore, has found a way to make them remain. Rumor has it that it’s to do with family slaying family. All the Enodians that have been slain by Theodore and his followers have belonged to the older generation. The Triodia believe they’re killing their own parents.”

Horror swept down Matteo’s spine. He pictured Theo and the strength of power he’d displayed in the Naples Penitentiary. Matteo remembered the para guards crawling on the floor, all inflicted with the waking terrors Theo had dredged up. At the time, he’d been staggered by the magnitude of the mage’s power. He remembered how the guards had still been plagued by fearful visions while Theo had kept the portal to the Between open and fought off Warden Whitmore. This was how. He had found a means of tethering para souls.

“Some Enodians are still fighting Theodore and his followers,” Piera continued. “But word is

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