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CHAPTER ONE
The shadows surrounding the Pool of Lost Souls were different They weren’t just inky splotches of darkness—they appeared to be alive The crevices on the stone walls of the massive cavern formed eyes that were hollow and dark They see This place filled rave of the Lorren Both locations werethat made me want to run and never come back
I glared at Eric, alking a few paces in front of e of the Pool Deterid, but I kneas the reason why I felt the dread coursing through my body
“Cut it out,” I snapped Since I pulled Collin through the mirror and said the Demon Princess’ spell, my ability to numb my senses turned spastic The sensations crept up onI could do to eradicate the probleain The only correlation was Eric It only seeel As he walked on in front of htly corded muscles, I couldn’t comprehend why he’d choose to use bloodlust now to cause the re see in e At tihtmy heart
Eric turned his stoic gaze inover his shoulder he replied, “Sos are beyond my control” He didn’t smirk There was no pleasure in his expression Whatever was happening, he didn’t see it Maybe the encounter at the mirror messed with him, too? I didn’t know
The skin on the back of ooseflesh with , “Whatever, Eric”
In front of us, the blue waters went on forever, filling massive sections of the cavern that were co sensation crept up azed at a shallow cove The sand was crushed to powder and rock walls surrounded three sides If the sun was suspended above, it would’ve looked like a beach
Clearingtension back down Somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered if I’d ever feel pleasure or pain oninduced by blood My chance of survival, however, was so re about
Eric moved in front of ht His head didn’t swing side to side like he thought ere being watched, but I knew he sensed it too We had to stay, because there was no other option It wasn’t like we could avoid this Co here was a necessity, a necessity that I created
Eric cleared his throat His light hair hung over golden eyes that narrowed to thin slits He had been in a weird mood This place bothered him, too As we neared the crystal clear water, he stopped Pain flashed behind his eyes, so quickly that I wasn’t sure if I’d seen it
He glanced over his shoulder and back atwatched “We shouldn’t be here,” he said His gaze studied my face for a second, then returned to the surface of the water He stared blankly, but I knew better than to think he wasn’t paying attention Eric didn’t space out and get lost in his thoughts He was the master of deception If he was stone still, there was a reason for it
But, since he wasn’t sharing what that reason was, I pushed past him I stopped when my shoe was less than an inch from the water within the Pool Last time, the depths tried to kill us Last time Eric and I stood here, ere mad at each other for different reasons He was someone else then So was I
I cleared reed with hiht of stupidity, but it was completely necessary and he knew it “You knoe have to do this There isn’t any other way to find that damn rock”
We needed Satan’s Stone, but Eric couldn’t re about the stone That information was stored in his soul with no way to call the inforlean some mey from his soul, that was in y The rest of the soul is throay and ends up in The Pool of Lost Souls If anted thethe stone, they would be found here
We’d spoken with Lorren about how to get the information from his soul Souls were difficult to understand They contained energy that kept the body alive It was this energy that fed the Valefar After that, little was known about what they were or how they changed It was clear that drained souls were prisoners in the Pool Kreturus trapped them there, but none of us knew exactly why or how That presented proble information from a soul The best we ca it
The thought of involving Ericelse, he seeht I was the one who freed the dormant evil that rested within Eric, and awakened it Eric was on his own crash course and I was on lanced at the Pool Eric’s soul was trapped in the crystal depths and would remain there for eternity
I glanced around looking for the source of the eyes I felt onNo one sat across the water There was nothing masked in the shadows There was only the sound of the constant drip, drip, drip of water, and the hollow noise that fills massive empty spaces with silent echoes
The last time one of us touched the water, it awakened the Guardian Those who touched the water were pulled into its dark depths and drowned But now that the Guardian was dead, was it still a risk? I didn’t know and neither did Eric It was possible that the Pool would still destroy anyone who touched it There was only one way to find out Brushing et it out of the way, and crouched down next to the water When I reached out to touch the surface of the Pool, Eric’s fingers wrapped around my wrist He’d knelt next to me