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Tobi can only stare back into Diazuul’s face. He screws up his courage to find a voice. “You’re not real,” he says in a tiny whimper.

Diazuul laughs. A great boom of a sound that shakes the trees. “Do I look like I’m not real?”

“You’re not really here,” Tobi says. “They drugged me. This is the abieum.”

“I might not be here before you, Darek son, but I am real. Do not doubt it. I do not have this body you see now. But I will. I rise. I have escaped my prison and I will soon control a new body. It cannot be stopped.”

“It can. I can stop you. If I kill Harok with Demonica, it will stop you.”

Diazuul reaches out with a huge clawed hand and takes hold of Tobi’s chin much like Lymok did. “But you cannot. That is not why you are here, Darek. You think you were brought here to stop me by the Verilissia? By destroying Harok? You really think I would allow that?”

Tobi is terrified. He feels a sickening hot wetness between his legs. He’s pissed himself in fear. But he realises something else. Diazuul is right. Diazuul has been controlling Urynwud for a long time. Manipulating everyone. Making something happen. Could it really be the case that Tobi was brought here to destroy Diazuul? Perhaps he too is part of Diazuul’s plan. “You want me here?” Tobi says weakly.

“Clever Beast Tamer,” Diazuul says in a low rumbling voice.

“Why would you want me?” he asks. “What am I for?”

“You, Beast Tamer. Why you? You ask that a lot? Could it be that you worry for your worth? It surprises you when anyone wants you. Why would I want you? Because you are one of them. Do you even know their names? The warrior, the thief, the scholar, the magician and the fool. You are the fool. The bold little performer. Born from the pathetic schemes of humans who thought they could bring my old foes forth, by breeding them like livestock. You are marked by their meddling. You have a role to play. But not the role they created you for. You are part of my design. A greater game and one they do not know. You see they do not understand how I will escape this forest. You were once in that shrine in the Rose Palace where two of my effigies are placed. You will connect me to the place where I can draw the most power. You will do that for me.

“Why would I do anything for you?” Tobi snaps back.

“I was part of Harok when you were anointed his kushir. You are mine, Beast Tamer.”

Diazuul moves closer, as if to kiss Tobi. And as he does, his face changes. He is Harok. He is Harok and the demon. He is Tobi’s Irgorye. He is Ereyek.

Tobi wrenches his head back. He looks into Diazuul’s eyes. “I am not yours,” he says. “You are not real.” He spits in Diazuul’s face and the vision seems to melt away before his eyes.

In his place stands Mareena, Tobi’s mother. But Tobi’s mother from his childhood memories, not the woman she became, snatched away from him by madness. Not the mother who barely remembers she has a son. No, this is the mother Tobi misses with all his heart. He feels a sharp pain in his chest to look at her with her milk-pale hair falling in waves and her eyes shining with life and love.

“Mother,” Tobi says, his voice shaking. He knows this cannot be real, and yet, he wants it to be. More than anything.

“The demon does not lie,” she says.

Tobi shakes his head. “He’s not real. He’s not real and nor are you.”

“That does not matter. You need to know something, Tobi. This is not only about the Amber Forest. It is not only about the Solwen. Diazuul wants more than that. This is about Azuria. Your father. The Dareks and the Rose Court. Diazuul wants the world. But he will not take it from the Amber Forest. He wants Attar. He wants to take control of the empire he had Sarelik Darek build for him. His plan is more terrible than you know.”

“His plan? What is his plan?”

“When we lived in the Rose Palace, I went into that shrine. I was looking for you, you were meant to be there, but you were not. I found myself there alone. I touched those statues. I could not resist them. They were so strange. Wood that looked like stone. But when I touched them I saw it. I saw what they were truly for.”

“What,” Tobi shakes his head. “What are they for? Those statues in Selim’s shrine? They came from here. From the Amber Forest. They are made from Susal-ur-Bellan.” He shakes his head as if trying to dislodge something. He looks around. The trees are crowded around him in the dark. His mother before him seems to glow. Lit by a magical light. His head swims. Could this be his mother? Could she really be here and what she is saying be the truth. A message she has found a way to get to him. If so, there is something he wishes to ask. Slowly he says, “Did touching those statues cause your madness?”

Mareena nods. “The fear of what I saw caused my madness. Those statues from this cursed forest. Diazuul reaching out to you. His fool, he called you. I took you away from that cursed palace, but even in Fanost I thought he might come for you. How could we ever be safe?”

Tobi swallows. “That is what caused your madness? Not me. Diazuul. You saw him and it sent you insane?”

Mareena nods, but somehow she is fading. Her words are faint. Her body seems unreal. “I saw the demon. I tried to run from it. I took you away from there. All the way to Fanost.”

Tobi swallows a sour taste in his mouth. “I know but what did you see? What is he trying to do?”

But she is gone. Mareena is gone and the night all around is dark.

Tobi thinks of the night he and his mother fled the palace. The thing he never forgave his mother for. She was running from the same demon that will destroy Harok.

Trying to protect her son from a demon who wanted him. And she brought Tobi right to him. Just another piece of Diazuul’s plan.

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