I was traveling with a goddamn genocidal maniac…
The words in his secret journal kept echoing in my head as we wandered through Bidepsi, an area in Mavriel left in ruins and despair. The deserted city had buildings and bridges that were left to rot in the brittle cold weather. This was as far from the rest of Mavriel we had been, away from the cornucopia of fae. I tried to keep my thoughts away from Rufian and his twisted plans, but I was finding it hard to keep it together in a place like this.
Why bring us here? Shouldn’t we be chasing the High Order for the Grimoire?
“All right!” Rufian tweeted, pivoting to me with an anxious grin. “Let’s see it!”
I glared at him, noticing how he wasn’t affected by the cold. Then again, why would he be? He forged ice for a fucking living…
“Well?” he insisted, clasping his hands together. “We don’t exactly have all day to linger, hero.”
My options were grossly limited. I still had no idea how to find the Grimoire, so I needed to stay on his good side until then.
This was crazy! Giving the enemy what he wanted, was there really no other way?
I couldn’t start over, I was fooling myself for ever thinking I could. It had to start and end with Rufian. But when I got my hands on that spell book, I swear on my mother’s grave I was going to stop him!
“Silas?”
“Yeah, yeah, just give me a minute to feel my goddamn fingers,” I retorted, and then pulled out the codex from my inventory.
Rufian snatched it from me, his eyes glowing with excitement. His fingers strummed down the leather front cover, with his lips hanging on the ground. “Back where you belong,” he whispered, the smile on his face stretching.
As he flipped through the pages, the knot in my stomach tightened even more. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of power the master spellbook held and what kind of destruction it could bring if it fell into Rufian's hands. But patience—I had to wait for the right time to strike. Besides, he still needed my help, so he couldn’t get rid of me just yet.
“Ah, I knew there was a pattern,” he said as his pointer finger traced over the page as he read. “The Grimoire’s movements mirror that of its codex. Which means I know exactly where it is.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “If it mirrors the Grimoire, and the Grimoire is being guarded by the council, then how—”
“Oh, I misspoke,” he interjected. “It is the crystal shard that is being protected by the High Order.”
“What?”
“The codex moves periodically. In fact, it moves every 72 hours. So there is no telling how long it had been in the Alpinuer estate. When the codex moves, the Grimoire does as well, and their locations mirror each other. So in theory, it may not even end up in Mavriel, which can be dangerous.”
“They mirror each other from which point?”
“The point of the heart of Mavriel, which truly, is a mystery to me as well. At first, I didn’t notice the correlation, but I am sure the entire High Order knows this pattern well.”
“But they don’t know where to find it,” I scoffed. “I find it strange that even they don’t know where it is.”
“It’s a failsafe.”
“For who, exactly?”
“Mavriel.”
“That’s not very smart.”
He chuckled. “They see it as such.”
“To protect Mavriel, they must hide the Grimoire from themselves while also leaving it open to the possibility of falling into enemy hands. But that’s beside the point. All this time you knew exactly where to find the next dungeon core piece.”
“Did I?”
I grunted. “Rufian, stop playing games with me!”
“I am not. Any one of those seven council heads could have the shard. But with the Grimoire, we can locate it!”
“I swear, if you’re screwing with me—”
“Silas, I see that you’ve used your last teleportation token…”
“Yeah, I have. What’s it matter?”
“And we are deep in No Man’s land, aren’t we?”
“What are you getting at?”
“I could easily leave you stranded,” he said boldly. “With the book in play, I could do anything I want. But I choose not to. Because I gave you my word. We are on the same team, and I wouldn’t lie about the crystal shard.”
“You already have!”
“Like I said, I misspoke.”
“That’s a big fuck up considering it’s the one thing I’m after!”
“Oh? I thought you wanted to also find my sister, Jezz?”
