☉NARIEL
They were Nyxie’s—four gleaming daggers, that were the only weapons nestled snugly within the girdle encircling my waist, meant to defend Vaelin. While concern for my own well-being ought to have consumed me, my thoughts steadfastly clung to those haunting words, ones I couldn't shake my mind from, that voice—his voice.
'It's all a trap to lure me in.'
‘A trap to lure me in … to lure me in… in…in…”
The voice wouldn't cease—echoing, raging relentlessly in my mind. I was certain I was no longer in Vaelin’s head, yet it continued to scream, roaring, refusing to relent.
The last traces of magic I felt from Vaelin vanished as we landed on the deck of the bone-colored castle, its walls tainted by sinuous tendrils of darkness, like dark veins of a liquid resembling poison or a sprea
