I slung my crossbow over my back, securing the leather strap. Time to get into the bank.
“Fara,” I whispered under my breath.
Purple light flashed around me, and cold magic skimmed my body as the spell whisked me away. When the purple light dimmed, I found myself on the manager’s mahogany desk. A rush of frigid wind whipped in through the broken window. I scanned the room until I spotted my crystal at my feet. Snatching it up, I slipped it in my pocket, then crouched perfectly still and listened to the silence.
I wasn’t worried about the manager—he’d left hours ago—but I was worried about the runes. I’d seen them earlier—the protection runes covering the windowpane. Runes linked directly to the High Elf police force. At best, I had about two minutes to break into the vault before the law arrived. I jumped down from the desk and rushed into a hall of ivory marble and walnut walls.
That was when I smelled my first big problem.
There was still a guard in the building, one that I hadn’t accounted for.
“They’ve got a draugr,” I whispered into my headset.
When Barthol didn’t respond, I stuffed my headset in my pocket. Probably the thick walls of the bank were interfering with the reception. Of course, my brother couldn’t help me fight the undead from where he was.
My pulse started to race. I could already hear the heavy thud of footsteps lumbering toward me.
I sprinted down the hallway, arms pumping. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been surprised to meet a draugr here. They made excellent guards, as they were obsessed with protecting treasure. Undead and untiring, they shredded thieves like me into little pieces.
At the far end of the hallway, I spied what I’d come for—the vault. But it wasn’t what I’d expected, and my mouth went dry. Not only did a heavy steel door lock it shut, but protection runes glowed over the metal. Not insurmountable, but with a draugr hot on my tail, I had no time to crack it.
I’d need to improvise.
Adrenaline coursing, I pulled my crossbow from my back, then kneeled to reload it.
The draugr shuffled into view. It was an animated corpse, its emaciated body sinewy and leathery. It licked its lips. Then, with a bellow, it charged. As it bounded down the hallway, I felt the floor tremble beneath me.
I raised the crossbow to my shoulder and fired. Satisfaction lifted my heart as I watched the bolt slam into the center of the draugr’s chest, only ten feet away from me. It grunted, looking down at the tiny bit of wood, then took another step toward me.
That was the problem with draugr. They were undead. You couldn’t kill a magically animated corpse just by shooting it in the heart, because they didn’t need their freaking hearts.
Good thing I’d fired an incendiary bolt.
The draugr was nearly on me when flames began to lick its skin. Something deep within its dead brain must have registered that fire was bad, because it finally stumbled back, clutching at its chest.
Ducking past it, I sprinted back toward the banker’s office. I knew that the gas filling the draugr’s body was extremely flammable. Just as I rushed into the windy office, the draugr detonated. I covered my head as the building shuddered with the blast.
In the next breath, I was up again.
I grimaced as I stepped out. The once gleaming marble hallway was now coated with leathery bits of draugr flesh. But I grinned when I saw that my plan had worked. I’d lured the beast close enough to the vault door that the explosion had blown it clean off its hinges.
Sometimes I really was brilliant.
I hurried inside the vault and began scanning the safe deposit boxes. I’d been assigned to steal box number 314, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.
But my smile disappeared when I discovered that the explosion had done more than just open the vault. The rack holding the deposit boxes had fallen, and their contents had spilled across the floor.
I glanced at my watch. Thirty seconds left.
“Balls,” I muttered, and began to search through the mess. Amid burning scrolls, I snatched up bits of broken unicorn horn, old spell books, even a velvet pouch of giant’s teeth. Priceless relics.
Problem was, the Shadow Lords hadn’t told me what was in box 314, so I had no idea what I was looking for. That sort of info was above my pay grade.
So, I stuffed anything that seemed remotely interesting into my pockets, hoping I was snatching the right thing.
“Crap,” I said again as my watch buzzed. Time’s up.
Then a gleam of metal caught my eye from under a faded scroll. I kicked the curling parchment aside and found a simple gold ring underneath.
Might as well take it.
I plucked it from the ground. But as soon as my fingers wrapped around the gold, a blinding flash of white light shattered my mind into a million pieces.
Chapter 3
Marroc
I woke with a jolt, feeling like someone had reached into my chest and squeezed my dead heart. I leaned back against the cold, slimy cell walls. As I caught my breath, I realized what had happened.
Someone had found my soul.
After all this time, would it finally come back to me?
I didn’t move from the stone ledge at the back of my cell. Instead, I closed my eyes again. With the limited magic I had, I reached out to the astral plane.
I had no soul to send across it, but with my mind’s eye, I could still look into the ethereal realm. Across the cosmic expanse, my soul shone like a star. I focused, trying to see who had found it. As I did, I felt the curse kindling. My body tensed as my blood began to warm.
I gritted my teeth. I could almost perceive her now. A woman.
Shock ignited me as she finally came into focus—the one who would free me. Horror wrapped around me like the coils of a serpent.
No.
One part of me was thrilled. At last, my magic had finally done what I’d commanded. It had bound itself to my twin soul, the perfect complement to my own. The one fated to lift the curse and join me for eternity.
And another half of me wanted to scream at the dead gods. My twin soul was a Dokkalfr. A Night Elf. Once she learned who I was, her only goal would be to send my soul to Helheim.
I lay back on the stone bench that served as my bed as I waited for her to find me.
Whatever happened next, I’d have to make sure she didn’t figure out how to end my life for good.
Chapter 4
Ali
My head throbbed as I opened my eyes. I lay in the middle of the vault, my cheek pressed against a chunk of unicorn horn. I sat up slowly, and nearly screamed when I looked at my watch. A full five minutes had passed since I’d broken into the bank. I was all out of time.
I stood on shaking legs, but my head felt strange. Unbalanced. Like that time Barthol had brought home an old bottle of vodka and dared me to drink half of it.
Even with my head spinning, I managed to stumble into the draugr-coated hallway. Gross, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
But my stomach flipped when a figure moved at the end of the hallway, just before the door to the manager’s office. Not a draugr this time—someone with golden hair draped over white robes, eyes the color of honey, and a thin hawthorn wand in his hand. There was no mistaking what he was. A High Elf.
He stood about fifteen feet away, and he’d spotted me.