The Heart of Alchemy by James Wisher (i like reading books txt) 📗

he considered the possibilities, Jade shifted beside him.

Wolfric opened his eyes.

Moonlight glinted off the dagger in her hand. At first his mind refused to comprehend what he saw.

Time slowed as he took in every detail. The slender, needle-sharp, double-edged blade, cold and hard, contrasted with Jade’s warm, soft, bronze skin. He even had time to wonder where she hid the weapon. Certainly he would have noticed it when they were getting undressed. Then again, he had been distracted.

Time sped up as she drove the blade down at his chest.

Wolfric caught her wrist.

For someone so small, she had strength.

He put everything he had into controlling her without hurting her. “Guards!”

Jade hissed and slashed at him with the nails of her free hand, drawing blood from his cheek.

The pain surprised him and he lost his grip. Outside, the guards were pounding on the door. Wolfric never locked it, but Jade must have.

He tried to scramble away.

Jade leapt, driving him to the floor and straddling him. Under other circumstances the rough play might have been fun. Today she wasn’t playing. Yet he still couldn’t bring himself to fight back.

She had both hands on the dagger and was using all her weight to drive it into his chest.

Inch by inch the tip drew closer.

Wolfric stared at her. “Why?”

Behind them the door crashed open and the guards poured in.

“It’s not personal, my love,” Jade said as she drove the dagger into his flesh. “I’m just doing my job.”

There was a dull thud and Jade’s weight vanished. Wolfric was only barely aware of that through the burning pain.

“Your Majesty,” Borden said. The captain of the palace guard knelt beside him.

Somehow Wolfric gasped out, “Closet. Circle. Otto.”

Borden leapt away, leaving Wolfric alone with his pain. Oddly, Jade’s betrayal hurt worse than the dagger. He’d loved her and thought she loved him. How had he been so blind?

As the darkness closed in on him there was a flash and he heard Otto’s voice saying something.

Then he heard nothing at all.

Chapter 16

Otto had barely taken a step away from the cabin when a powerful vibration ran through the ether. He knew that feeling all too well. Someone was pounding on one of his rune marks. An instant of mental effort tracked it back to the royal castle. No one there would have used it unless an emergency had come up. Given that Otto had walked into a trap, Wolfric may well have gotten more than he bargained for with his new girlfriend.

He looked down at Abby, who smiled back at him. It may or may not have been possible to take someone through the ether with him, but either way he had no idea how to go about it.

“You’re going to have to wait a little longer.” Otto retreated to the cabin, set Abby on the table, and wrapped her in a bubble of ether. That would keep her warm and safe until he returned.

Becoming one with the ether, he shot back to the castle and appeared in Wolfric’s closet. Instead of the emperor, he found a pale, trembling Commander Borden waiting for him.

“What happened?”

“The crazy bitch stabbed him.”

Otto’s guts twisted. “Is he still alive?”

“Barely.”

Otto brushed past Borden and found Wolfric lying on the floor, naked as the day he was born, in a pool of blood. The hilt of a dagger jutted from his chest. Otto focused on the wound. The blade missed his heart by less than an inch, and it had nicked some important blood vessels.

Tubes of ether formed at his command, sealing the wounds and repairing, for the moment, the damaged veins. Though his heartbeat was still weak, now blood could flow everywhere it needed to rather than leaking on the floor.

“We need to carry him down to the Chamber,” Otto said. “Carefully. Hopefully its magic will be enough to allow me to heal him.”

Borden pointed and four guards hurried over to lift Wolfric gently off the floor.

“What about her?” Borden nodded toward the still-unconscious Jade.

Otto hadn’t even noticed her limp body lying there, so focused had he been on Wolfric. “Put her in a cell. No one touches her. I need answers and she’s the only one still alive to give them to me.”

Another pair of guards carried Jade off and Otto and Borden fell in behind the men carrying Wolfric. Otto sent his magic ahead, deactivating the protective spells shielding the Chamber.

The palace guard must have cleared the halls as they encountered no one as they went.

“Is he going to live?” Borden asked.

“That depends. Do we have prisoners?”

Borden shot him a look then nodded. “Six at the moment, not counting the woman.”

“Hopefully that will be enough. Have them brought to the Chamber room, bound hand and foot, as quickly as possible.”

To his credit, Borden didn’t argue. At his command, half a dozen more guards broke off from their group. The dungeon had a separate entrance from the room where he’d housed the Chamber.

As they slipped through the heavy oak door, one of Wolfric’s bearers shouted, “He’s bleeding again.”

Otto grimaced. Something must have broken loose on the way down. A thread of ether outlined the Chamber door and made it dissolve. “Put him inside, pull the dagger out, and get clear.”

“He’ll bleed out,” Borden said.

“No, he won’t, not if I have anything to say about it.”

The guards manhandled Wolfric inside the glass cylinder. His limp form slumped against the back wall. It had really been designed for someone to stand in, but it didn’t matter. They forced his legs inside before one of them yanked the dagger out and leapt clear.

With a thought, Otto sealed the Chamber. Twenty threads arced out into the mithril tripod at the top. Ethereal lightning filled the Chamber with dancing light.

Fully connected to it now, Otto saw all the damage Wolfric had suffered in minute detail. It was a bloody miracle he was still alive.

First Otto strengthened Wolfric’s heart and lungs. He still had a little power left so he sent a trickle to the rest of