A Darker Shade of Sorcery, - [top ten ebook reader txt] 📗

aureate than she'd ever seen it, his hair a deeper shade of gold. His eyes reminded her of milk chocolate.

She also noticed the fine white scars across his back, littering the length of his spine.

“I thought we can heal most wounds, even so they won’t leave a scar? The arm Lyella broke is completely fine thanks to you.”

Lok's smile faltered and he bit back whatever joke had been on the end of his tongue.

“Scars can't be healed if they were inflicted before we came here.”

“What do you mean? What could've happened to you to make your back like that?”

“There’s not that many,” he muttered, “I’d take twice as many if it would've saved my mum.”

311

“What…” she thought she'd misheard.

“Nothing, don't worry.”

He jumped off the rock and put his shirt on hastily.

“Wait are… are you okay, Lok? What did you mean?”

He turned back to look at her, smiling bizarrely.

“Oh you know, dead mum, abusive dad, cliché bad boy stuff.”

“Wha- are you serious, this isn't another weird joke, right?”

Lok chuckled vacantly. “Yeah, I'm just messing. I never used to hide under my bed, listening to my mum’s screams. Hearing my dad's fists smack her flesh repeatedly, too little to help, too little to fight him off. I never saw her in the morning, face swollen, bones broken.”

Brooke couldn't stand it, she needed to make him stop. “Lok I-”

“No, it's all good. My mum’s dead now. He didn't kill her. Some drunk driver mowed her down. She escaped the torment; my dad just turned his anger to me then.

That belt buckle, well…”

Lok cut off suddenly as he glanced at her face. Her upset made him fall silent.

“Sorry, you didn't need to hear that. I dreamed about him last night, haven't been able to get the scum out of my head since. I hate him! Even if he’s my flesh and blood, I hate him.”

“It's… it's okay. You don't have to apologise, I know what it's like.”

He looked at her disbelievingly.

“Well, not exactly, but my brother Adam. He was… troubled. He-”

She took a deep breath. “He wasn't as violent as your dad, god I can't imagine what you had to go through. Adam just hit me when he couldn't control his anger, he hit

312

other boys too, got expelled from loads of schools, until… until he strangled another boy to death.”

Lok looked at her curiously, his expression unreadable.

“Adam got put in a home for the mentally insane afterwards, but I think there was just hatred in him, not insanity. What… happened to your dad?”

Lok paused for a long time.

“Dunno’. Not in prison like he deserves.”

“I'm-I'm sorry.” It was all she could think of, she knew everyone said it, and it was never enough.

Lok bit his lip as he stared about the clearing, as if making sure there'd been no one else around to hear.

“I'll keep your secret if you keep mine.”

She saw the intensity in his stare and sensed he already regretted telling her anything.

“Umm, okay.”

A mischievous smile splashed across his face again, though his eyes remained intense.

“I'll er… I'll see you around, Brooke. Try not to spy on me naked again.”

He chuckled hollowly before leaving the glade, not waiting for her to catch up.

Once he'd gone Brooke remembered their meeting after she'd taken a shower.

He'd said his dad died, hadn't he?

Brooke stared at the space Lok had stood for a long time after that, her eyes itching.

*

313

Kurrlan screamed in fury, throwing the head of his messenger across the throne room.

“You failed me again.”

His underlings cowered before him.

The Dread Lord's grotesque gaze fell on his lieutenant, a gaze so terrifying a demon cowered before it.

“Raise the army! Prepare the bulk of my forces. I shall inform our allies in Veneseron. Arok, you will bring me the Spawn yourself. Fail me and I shall have you flayed for a century.”

Arok ran to obey.

Kurrlan seethed atop his throne. He would stop at nothing until the boy was his.

He would burn Veneseron to the ground if he had to.

Chapter 21- All Dead

Brooke’s Apprentice trial was looming.

As the days trickled by, Brooke had scarcely a thought for anyone due to training, even Arantay… almost. The Masters trained her hard and she often holed up in the Archives, searching for anything that might help. Elijah said the trial was different for each Apprentice, so it was impossible to fully prepare. Brooke would have to train in

314

everything. She read books detailing the most effective way to kill a certain demon, or how best to utilise water magic, and a lot of other stuff she'd no use for at all, like how to grow a forty-foot tall sunflower.

She was in the Archives again tonight, looking up healing tips in a leather-bound book so old it now resembled an elderly orc’s backside.

The sky outside the window darkened as Brooke spent an hour reading. After a large group of Brazilian Venators left, the Archives fell silent. Then soft mutterings began somewhere behind her. At first, she thought it was other Venators studying late, but as the minutes dragged by, she realised it was only one voice speaking unnervingly fast.

Intrigued, she set her book down and moved towards the voice. A couple of rows behind her a dark, wavy haired boy was poring over a manuscript, black eyes flickering from page to endless page.

Brooke thought she’d been silent, but Sintian’s head snapped up as she approached.

“Yes?” His soft voice belied his near-savage appearance.

“Nothing, I was just leaving.”

She made to go, but Sintian said, “You think you’re something special around here, don’t you? Just because you’ll be an Apprentice soon, if you pass.”

His eyes were unsettling in the sparse light.

“No. I was just spending some extra time studying because I don’t want to fail.”

Stray’s lip curled. “Well then, I wish you the best of luck.”

Brooke decided it was useless attempting to talk with him. She turned to leave, but then another thought struck her.

“All I ever see you do is looking up old books. Why?”

315

Sintian’s heavy lids blinked at her lazily for a few moments before he answered.

“There are things we can do with sorcery. Great, and ancient things the Masters won’t teach us.”

A twinge of anxiety filled her. “Why would you want to learn things the Masters don't teach?”

“Because I want to learn more, to learn all I can. Knowledge is everything, Brooke.” He spoke to her like she was a child, “and I intend to garner all the knowledge this place holds. To delve deep into secret arts few have learned and fewer mastered. I was just a Phantom class Venator once, but I’ve managed to become a Hybrid, I’m strong now in the Serene and Caustic classes too.”

“That’s impossible.”

“No, hybrid classes are extremely rare, but I’ve done it. It’s just impossible for us to perform every single type of sorcery, that won’t stop me from trying though. I crave power, and I'm not afraid to admit it. The other Realmers may mock me, call me a freak, but I don’t care. Soon I'll leave Veneseron, journey into the darkest of worlds, always seeking new sorceries. The rest of you are fools. If you’re lucky enough to be blessed with sorcery, then why wouldn’t you want to test yourself to the limit, be the very best? You think me Conceited? Maybe even evil? But they’re foolish notions. I am simply smarter than the rest of you. I have ambition, a path set out for me, and this path I shall follow throughout the worlds.”

Sintian’s eyes burned into her own. “You don’t understand me, do you? No one ever does.”

“But, why do you seek more power? So you can be stronger against the demons?”

“Demons, no,” he barely whispered, “Dark-Realmers.”

“Because they killed your parents?”

316

She'd gone too far.

There was a deranged gleam in Sintian’s eyes as he hissed, “Never speak of that again!”

Brooke jumped, taken aback by his vehemence.

He leaned over the table so he could whisper.

“You've got skill, Brooke, but you could be so much more, better than the other Venators. Just like me. You could learn with me.”

“Um, no thanks.” She backed away.

“If you ever change your mind,” Sintian called after her, smiling hopefully.

She left him in his dark corner of the Archives to continue his lustful learning of ancient arts. But when she chanced a look back, she thought he looked sad, almost close to tears.

Veneseron Fortress was ethereally silent. Moonlight shone bright as she stepped outside, giving the castle walls a ghostly tinge.

She walked across marble pathways snaking towards Castle-Coterie. Mechanical arms protruded from the ground beside the paths, grasping rush lights to ward off the gloom. Brooke wasn’t usually scared of the Fortress at night, but with news about the most recent demon attack she couldn’t help but wonder.

*

The day of her trial had dawned. Brooke’s stomach knotted painfully as she entered the Master's Citadel.

She needed to get to the top floor so decided to use the teleporter ring. She stepped onto the circular silver platform and punched the ‘10’ on the keypad in the wall.

317

Seconds later she was transported to the tenth floor. Brooke still wasn’t used to teleportation, but it was faster than the stairs.

Teleporting itself was surreal. It was like she’d blinked and suddenly she was on a different floor. Her body would feel peculiarly light for a minute afterwards, but there were no other side-effects.

She tried to stop breathing so fast as she hurried down the passageway and the pushed the door open gingerly.

Masters Gettelung and Greller were waiting for her.

A circular basin stood at the end of the chamber, it reminded Brooke of a giant golden well. She went to peer over its edge. At first, she thought it was a bottomless pit that went on forever. Then she noticed a strange blue-purple substance at the bottom. It appeared to be a portal, like the one she’d gone through to reach Veneseron.

“Good Morning, Brooke,” Gettelung smiled.

Brooke just nodded, not wanting to open her mouth. The portal swirled silently.

“Nervous?”

Brooke nodded again.

“Now when you jump into the portal you must remember that what happens is beyond our control. The trial is influenced by your own imagination. You will see things, strange or downright terrifying, but it’s all in your head. Just remember, follow the red sphere; eventually it’ll lead you back here. If an hour passes and you’ve not been able to escape, we shall retrieve you, but you will have failed.”

“Don't worry,” Greller chipped in, “this is the easiest trial.”

“What if I fail?

318

“Then we try again at a later date, but by then your friends may have travelled up the ranks without you. Okay then, in you go.” Gettelung gestured.

Brooke took another deep breath and jumped. She fell fast, she was going to splatter at the bottom, it wasn’t