Quill of Thieves

Chapter 52

Pavel's Monverta yanked Sebastian from the horrifying reality of Lambert's office and hurtled him straight into a mystifying dream. A dream for which Sebastian had never studied the script but somehow knew the part to play.

It was disorienting.

Sebastian stared into thick, tropical foliage from eyes that were not his own. It felt very strange, but he knew it to be so because everything in his vision glimmered in a fading outline of silvery glows. He had never experienced anything like it. Even the damp soil under his feet had transformed into a living, breathing entity; its silver shadow pulsed outwards like a river's ripple. When he squinted, he found the glowing came from actual magical threads, which flickered and twirled outwards from the variety of elemental sources surrounding him: the palm leaves swayed overhead, smelling of dew and heat; Air tickled Sebastian's cheek and danced against the backdrop of the encroaching night sky; threads of water swam from the small pools of rain collected in the fallen leaves and flowers' petals.

Everything here breathed with magic.

"Soleita." His brain recognized it from the portal right before he had spoken it out aloud.

But a different voice whispered, "Voixili."

Though Sebastian' mouth had moved, his tongue pushing forth the cursed word, it had not been his voice. However, he did recognize it. It was the same one as the Soleitian man from the portal.

Startled, Sebastian glanced down at his hands; Pavel's Monverta lay spread against his propped up knee from where he knelt amongst the long, thick grass. A quill he held scrawled the word—voixili—into an empty page, written like Sebastian knew the purpose of it, one he felt in his heart but could not put a name to.

He felt like a puppet.

When the book snapped closed, Sebastian noticed this Monverta was missing the dark, ashy burns from the dragon's fire of the second task; the top left corner of the worn leather no longer appeared singed and flaked. He blinked. But when his eyelids failed to move, it clicked all the small, incomprehensible pieces of this nonsense into a completed puzzle.

I am not here, Sebastian realized, This is Pavel's memory. I am inside Pavel.

A woman's voice hushed through the thicket of lush vines. "Pavel?"

Pavel rushed towards the soft, lilting voice. An undeniable sense of adoration mixed with the sharp tang of fear pulsed through Pavel's blood; Sebastian felt it like it was his own. The shape of a woman emerged from the draping vines of a nearby tangle of branches. Pavel took the woman's hands in his own and kissed the backs of her knuckles twice. Her skin was the rich golden color of honey, hands graceful and smooth. Young. A single, shimmering thread of Spirit twined amongst her long fingers.

They shook.

"You shouldn't have done that," she said. Her hands flipped over in Pavel's, palms up. She wiggled her fingers and urged his Spirit's thread back to him. "You cannot afford to give any more of yourself to your Monverta. Not now."

Pavel released her hands but only to tuck a stray piece of long, black hair back behind her small, rounded ear. "But I must." The rest of her thick curls were gathered neatly beneath a jeweled headpiece of delicate silver chains and emeralds. It draped over her head like a richly-woven net. "It is not a choice I have the luxury to make any longer."

His fingers lingered on her cheek for a moment. "Aurelea, I need your help."

"I cannot." Aurelea glanced up with a small frown. Her eyes were a startling green. They glinted beneath her heavy lashes. She looked him over, hands clasped in front of her stomach. "You know I shouldn't."