Page 125 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

It didn’t come.

Instead, there was a lightness, a loosening of all that weight he’d carried so long across his shoulders that he’d forgotten it was there. For the first time in his life—he truly felt like himself.

He unclipped the cuff to see if all the staves were there on his undershirt’s sleeve, but they were all gone. Only the silver threads remained, tainted with a faint tinge of grayish purple. He wiped his hand over the threads with a wave of magick, and they were silver once more.

That earned a nod from Martar, because he’d still chosen his brothers.

Gellar picked his way across the wreckage of broken glass and fractured stone as he approached. “How did you know to come?”

Zarek looked at Angela. “I felt her.”

“That means…” Bellus scrambled upright from behind a section of fallen wall, spectacles ruined—but his eyes bright with his excited smile. “You have inter-planetary calling with the Claiming! Do you realize no one has documented this before? The capacity to sense across realms without a ward or a sigil—”

“What happened?” Zarek demanded from the Sleep Wizard, sheepishly peering into the room.

“I…” The wizard’s mouth opened. Closed. His eyes wide on the wreckage. “I… don’t entirely know.”

“You told me Angela wouldn’t be in danger.”

“She wasn’t, my Lord.” At least the wizard had enough sense to keep his eyes down rather than meet Zarek’s—who wasn’t entirely sure what his eyes would do now if anyone looked too long.

“It was the rest of us that were in danger,” muttered the Sleep Wizard. “Angela was always protected. But she had someone else with her in that dream state.”

“Who were you with?” Zarek turned to Angela.

She blinked. And then something moved across her face, as if assembling pieces of a puzzle into a picture so big she got to her feet.

“Him.” She took a step toward the space that once held a wall of windows. “That was him.”

“Angela?” Zarek could read the energy coming off her. She was no longer in distress, only now bordering on fury.

He’d seen her angry before, but this was different. Enough to approach her the way you’d approach something that might bite. “Who are you talking about?”

“Him.”

“Who?” If the staves were still on his armor, they’d be glowing about now.

Angela held the medallion sitting on the chain he’d given her only this morning. She lifted her chin and spoke to the air. “I know you can hear me.”

A male figure appeared, leaning against the last standing remnants of the blown-out window so casually he might have been there all along. He was in a black priest’s suit with a white band at the collar, his dark hair threaded with silver, arms folded, smiling as if amused.

Instantly, Zarek’s hand went to his sword, keeping Angela behind him.

The stranger in the suit was standing in a secured wing of the Vanguards Keep, in a locked down area, heavily warded for the Sleep Wizard’s session.

Condorr lifted his palm to test the air, just as Zarek tried to read the magick this stranger possessed. But there was no magical signature, and no residue from the Keep’s protective wards, which still held.

There was nothing that marked this stranger as a threat, or anything other than a mortal man who had simply appeared in a place, where no uninvited stranger should have been able to reach. Which was impossible because mortals didn’t even know this realm existed.

Around him, Zarek heard the low scrape of steel as the others reached the same conclusion. Condorr. Rocharde. Martar. Gellar. Bellus—whose hand went to the bridge of his nose to push up the spectacles that were no longer there. Every Sworn Exarch present came to attention with their weapons half-drawn, the instinct to defend their house already moving faster than thought.

At least the Sleep Wizard had enough sense to flee.

“Calm down, little one,” the priest said to Angela, ignoring the armed men surrounding him like they were just part of the scenery. “Losing your temper won’t help anything.”

“Angela…” Zarek kept his voice low, his fire already dancing along the edge of his awareness in partnership with the Claiming.

But Angela was pointing as she took a step closer to the stranger. “It was you. Why? After all this time, why didn’t you tell me?”