The Stone Wolf (The Chain Breaker Book 4) by D.K. Holmberg (digital book reader TXT) 📕

remained. Gavin had taken any useful furniture down to the chamber below to set up a space for him to maneuver, but he hadn’t been able to find anything else here. The cabinets were all empty, and nothing of Cyran’s was left.

He unsheathed the El’aras dagger and began to push outward with his core reserves. He clutched the dagger tightly and swung it from side to side, illuminating the space. Even as he looked around the room, he didn’t find anything more.

The enchantment in his ear crackled.

“Wrenlow?”

It fell silent again, as if the enchantment had failed.

Gavin focused on his power, and he tapped on the enchantment again. “Is that you, Wrenlow? Or is it Gaspar?”

No answer came.

He started to release the power within him, and the enchantment crackled again. This time, he was certain of what he heard, though he had no idea what it might mean. He’d never heard the earpiece crackle like that and didn’t know if there was some part of it that was starting to fail. All enchantments’ powers waned eventually. He didn’t expect the El’aras enchantment to fail quite so soon, though.

Gavin tapped on it again and listened, but there was nothing. “If either of you is there, I’m at Cyran’s home. I want to talk about our plan for these attacks.”

Gavin released his hold on the magic within him, letting it fade. He turned and headed to the back room and the trapdoor that led underground to Cyran’s lair, where Gavin had found the El’aras sword. He stopped in front of the trapdoor, holding his hand above it, and then pulled the door open.

Though he could use the enchantment that would grant him light even in the darkness, he hesitated. He needed to make sure he could use his own power. Gavin focused on the core reserves within him and pushed energy out through the dagger. Then he climbed down.

Something seemed different.

It was instinct honed over years. That was the only reason he felt that something was off. Even in that, Gavin didn’t know if what he detected was real, but he thought it was.

He wasn’t alone.

Gavin jumped the remaining steps down the ladder and paused at the bottom, sweeping his gaze around him. He didn’t see anything.

He focused and pushed more power out through the dagger. The blade glowed, but something else happened that he hadn’t expected. As the power flowed out from him, Gavin was aware of the energy that drifted along the ground.

It met resistance straight ahead.

Gavin darted forward.

Almost too late, Gavin realized there were three people with him.

Had he not already been connected to his own power the way he was, he might not have even detected it. Gavin jumped back, latching on to the core reserves. He tried to push outward as he would as the Chain Breaker, but nothing about the resistance shifted. Not the way he expected it to. Power exploded away from him, but he wasn’t able to do it again when he tried. There was energy, but nothing beyond that.

Gavin considered switching to the sword, but in the small confines of the space, the dagger made more sense. He squeezed the handle, and then he jumped forward.

He slammed into an invisible barrier.

“Magic?” he whispered.

He hadn’t felt anything.

These days, that was unusual.

The three people stepped to either side of him, getting close enough that he could see them with the light from the dagger. For a moment, Gavin feared that these weren’t just any three attackers but the Fates. Then he remembered the Fates would not have been dressed like this—all in deep black leather. And from what he had seen before, the Fates weren’t all women.

These attackers had matching red hair, tanned skin, and slender daggers. They stood before him, and yet they made no attempt to come at him. They just stayed there, waiting.

“Is this a trick?” Gavin asked.

Or maybe they weren’t only waiting. They were holding on to power and weren’t going to let him pass. All of this was meant as a way to prevent him from getting to the chamber.

His chamber.

This was where he had been the night before, though. Could they have had some way of tracking him?

They didn’t seem to be doing anything other than trying to hold him back.

That was it.

Why were they here?

That seemed beyond what he would’ve expected, but with all of the strangeness he’d experienced around the city these days, he supposed he shouldn’t be altogether surprised. He pushed the dagger up against the barrier slowly but found too much resistance.

He sheathed the dagger and pulled out the sword. The entire purpose of the sword, at least from what Gavin had seen, had been to allow him to carve through magic that he couldn’t before.

As he continued to press the sword against the barrier, the energy crackled, creating faint blue lines that worked along the surface of the barrier. The lines streamed away from it and stretched outward, toward the sword and along the blade.

Gavin forced the blade forward again. This time, he tried a different technique, pushing power out from him. That had worked before, and he knew how to let that energy flow out of him into the sword. The power left the blade crackling even more, pressing up against what these three attackers were doing to him.

One of them stepped forward.

“Why don’t you just lower this,” Gavin said, “and then the four of us can have a little chat.”

“Head back out of here and you won’t have any trouble.” Her voice was soft, slightly accented, and it carried a hint of power.

He almost laughed at the comment. He was to head out of here? Who was she to say that to him?

“Who put you up to this? Was it Tristan?”

“Stay away from here,” the woman said. The others echoed behind her.

They moved in sync with her, their words matching hers. Which meant they were mirror copies. What reason would she need for that?

“All right. Maybe it wasn’t Tristan,” Gavin conceded.

That didn’t fit,