Thief of Souls

by Emma L. Adams

  In the same instant, the castle door slammed open and Mr Cobb limped inside, his expression livid. “You ruined everything!”

  I threw the disused amulet at him, and with my other hand, I completed the transfer, pushing the Death King’s soul back into its original vessel.

  The Death King flew at Mr Cobb and hit him with the force of a speeding train. The two of them might have been an equal match before, but now the Death King was at full power. He could tear out Cobb’s soul and rip it into ribbons.

  Mr Cobb staggered to his feet and tried to run, but the Death King raised both hands, causing his body to rise like a puppet on strings. He began to scream, as though torn from within by unimaginable pain.

  “Stop!” I said. “He has to face justice from the Order. Otherwise, I’m the one they’ll punish in his place.”

  The Death King cut me a sideways look. “He deserves worse than anything the Order can do to him.”

  “Worse than having his magic taken away and his memories?” I asked. “Regardless of what you think, the Order will be looking for a target to blame. And if he’s dead or driven into madness, he can’t testify. Leave him alive.”

  He raised a hand and Mr Cobb’s body flew backwards, slamming against the wall. He went limp, his head lolling.

  Then the Death King looked at me, his gaze starkly inhuman. “If you insist.”

  24

  It wasn’t that simple. My life never is.

  The trial was scheduled less than twenty-four hours after the battle, and I was invited to testify against Mr Cobb. I’d never been in the Order’s courtroom before, but prickles of déjà-vu hit me between the shoulder blades the instant I walked out of the elevator into the high-ceilinged, wide atrium up on the third floor. My heart climbed into my throat, and it was all I could do to keep breathing.

  I might not remember, but I’d been convicted in this very room. I must have been.

  Then my gaze fell on Mr Cobb, who sat palely in his seat, flanked by several uniformed security personnel. He looked dazed, as though the impact of losing the Death King’s soul was finally starting to sink in, and he didn’t even seem to notice me enter the room.

  Yet as I took my own seat, dread gripped me as though I was the one on trial. The other Order members’ judgemental stares were even worse than usual, as were the whispers they thought I couldn’t hear. The Order hadn’t faced a battle in the Parallel in a while, and they’d certainly never expected a suspected traitor to be the one to lead them into the fight against one of their own. While the liches couldn’t exactly be trialled for murder, rumour had it that the higher-ups weren’t pleased by the crimes the Death King’s people had committed while under Cobb’s control. So, in the absence of anyone else to blame, they directed their attention onto me.

  “We are here for the trial of Barrett Cobb,” said the judge, a tall black man dressed in sombre attire. “He stands accused of treason against the Order of the Elements and against the ruler of the Court of Death. The first to testify against him will be Olivia Cartwright.”

  An outbreak of muttering followed at the sound of my name. I swallowed hard, rising to my feet.

  “Mr Cobb,” I said, holding up the now-empty amulet. “I accuse you of treason against the Order of the Elements and against the crown of the Death King. You hired people to steal the Death King’s soul amulet, after which you claimed his soul and his magic for your own use. Then, you attacked and killed multiple Order members and nearly brought about another war in the Parallel.”

  He finally looked at me, his expression taut with rage. “You accuse me of treason? You knew Dirk Alban. You benefited from his studies, and you used those skills against the Death King.”

  My heart drummed as the whispers picked up, and raw panic closed my throat. One wrong word from one person and I’d be condemned along with him.

  “Olivia committed no crimes,” said the judge. “By the order of the Death King, she is to be pardoned for any magic she used while under duress.

  He what? The Death King had got me off the hook? Even though I’d stolen his soul. Then lost it. And then saved him from certain doom. Okay, at this point, I hadn’t the faintest clue what to expect from him. But this?

  “Can the Death King confirm it?” asked someone.

  “Yes,” said a cold, resonant voice.

  Several gasps rose from the crowd as the Death King himself entered the atrium. All eyes followed his passage, right up until he stopped at my side. Then he faced the audience, and from the gasps that ensued, he wasn’t wearing his human disguise this time.

  “Go on,” he said. “Get on with the trial.”

  I nearly laughed, mostly at how absurd the situation was. The Death King, interfering in Order affairs. I’d have expected him to keep his distance, but perhaps he’d come here for his own form of revenge on Mr Cobb. Who even knew at this point?

  “I think that’s proof enough of this man’s treachery,” said one of the senior supervisors.

  The others seemed to agree. It was possibly the shortest trial in the history of the Order, but despite the fresh outbreak of mutters and whispers that followed Mr Cobb’s removal from the room, nobody voiced any objections. Most seemed too distracted by the Death King’s unexpected presence.

  The lift doors closed, taking Mr Cobb away—and with him, my only shot at unearthing the rest of the secrets buried in my memories. For now, at least. With my freedom close to being restored, I’d be a fool to put it in jeopardy again.

  Gradually, the others filed out of the atrium. The Death King, however, didn’t move—and neither did I. He didn’t speak either, so I took that as an invitation to lean closer to him and whisper, “Thanks.”

  He didn’t respond. The others continued to leave, even the members of the upper room, until it was just me and the Death King. When he remained silent, I turned to leave, too.

  “Olivia.”

  I halted. “Yes?”

  “I would like to make you an offer,” said the Death King. “Join my four Elemental Soldiers as our fifth member.”

  “The Spirit Element.” I tried the sound in my mouth. “Yeah, no thanks. I don’t remember any lessons in spirit magic. I’m less than a novice.”

  “I could help you.” His tone sounded almost… normal, and it hit me that he’d switched to his human face at some point. When had that happened?

  Disbelief rose inside me. “Help me? You locked me in your jail and nearly had me killed.”

  He shook his head. “I have already explained that I regret the misunderstanding—”

  “What you did to Brant was a hell of a lot more than a simple misunderstanding,” I said. “Also, might I remind you that the Order forbids its members from using spirit magic in any capacity? I’d rather not lose any more memories, thanks. Or be stripped of my magic, like Mr Cobb.”

  Not that I’d be making a habit of using it, regardless. I had zero desire for my own soul to end up stored in an amulet, passed around like a toy. I wouldn’t be powerless again, and I wouldn’t submit to the King of Death after how he’d treated me.

  “The Order isn’t the place for someone like you,” he said. “They fear spirit magic.”

  “And with good reason,” I said. “Look at what it did to the Parallel during the spirit war. It’s the reason your liches ended up trapped, too, isn’t it?”

  He was silent for a long moment. “The liches made their decision, and we stand by it. I would like you to do the same, especially if you’re going to continue to befriend spirits and openly use your magic.”

  Dex? Did he know that I’d brought him back from death?

  “I’ll take it under advisement,” I told him. “I never said I forgave the Order for what they did, but I can either play by their rules or never set foot in the Parallel again. If I join you, then I’ll never see my friends on Earth again, either. The Order would probably put a warrant out against me, besides. I’m already on probation.”

  “I can erase your record,” he sai
d. “I can remove all black marks from your file so that your choice is not affected by the Order’s decisions.”

  “You can’t get my memories back, can you?” I was only half joking. I wasn’t joining him, one way or another.

  “No,” he said. “That’s not in the domain of spirit magic, I’m afraid.”

  “Worth a shot.” I shrugged.

  “So you won’t consider my offer?”

  “Nah, I don’t want to live in the realm of the dead, thanks,” I said. “This is my home. Earth.”

  With my friends. Even Brant, who had not been invited to the trial. He’d be waiting for me outside, yet part of me wanted to stay here stubbornly until the Death King left before I did.

  Then again, that wasn’t a fair contest. He could literally wait until the ends of the earth, after all.

  “So be it.” He extended a hand, holding out a muddy backpack. My backpack, which his people had ripped off me when I was in jail. My hand closed around the strap on autopilot, and he let go of it, striding around me.

  While I was staring into the empty courtroom, lost for words, he vanished from sight. Heartbeat quickening, I opened the bag. The contents had seen better days, but on top of a pile of muddy clothes lay my lucky dice.

  “What’s he playing at?” I whispered, not expecting an answer. It was weird enough that he’d offered me a job, when I’d assumed that he’d never want to set eyes on me again. Even weirder was the fact that he’d actually shown up here today. He could have left the Order to convict Mr Cobb alone and cut me out of his life forever.

  Was he afraid that I’d tell the Order that without his soul, he was powerless? That anyone who held his amulet could use his magic? If I were him, I’d want to ensure the official reports didn’t contain any evidence of my weaknesses. It was nice to imagine he’d also wanted to ensure the Order wouldn’t punish me, but I doubted so. His own misguided assumption that Mr Cobb was in the right had cost both of us, after all.

  I entered the empty elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. The doors slid closed, and I released a breath, some of the tension seeping out of me. I was alive. I’d refused a job offer from the Death King and walked away intact. My friends would be safe. And the Order… they’d spared me from any punishment. My record might not be squeaky-clean, but I wouldn’t be spending an eternity in a cell.

  Sure, there were a fair few people at the Order who’d like to see me locked up, and maybe more who’d like to exploit my newly rediscovered spirit magic. Including the Death King. He’d hinted he knew what I’d done to save Dex, and doubtless there was more he could teach me, but at the cost of never being able to come back here to Earth. Maybe my two worlds would eventually clash again, but I’d lived to face another day.

  Oh, and I had my lucky dice back. That was always a bonus.

  The D20 rolled to a stop, and I punched the air. “Natural twenty.”

  Devon grinned. “Your attack knocks the wight into a thousand pieces of bone.”

  “Nice,” said Trix.

  Devon presided over our D&D game with eager enthusiasm. While she’d sworn not to tell the rest of the group all the details of my eventful week, she and I had had an involved prep session rolling up stats for an evil Lich Lord who captured souls. Petty, maybe, but it wasn’t like the Death King would have any idea.

  Trix had reprised his position as the dwarven fighter who led our team into as many traps as he got us out of. Red, a computer scientist in real life, played an elven cleric on a quest to prove her worth to her magically proficient family. She was the healer of the group, a necessity with a bunch of ragamuffins like us. At her side sat Craig He, who also worked in the Order’s retrieval unit on the admin side, played a wizard gunslinger gnome on a quest for knowledge. His sister, Carla, played a half-elf warlock who’d made a deal with an interdimensional demon and sometimes randomly started reciting her grocery list in demon tongues. This proved helpful in battles, as you can imagine.

  Everything was proceeding as usual, yet Brant hadn’t shown his face. He’d come to visit me a couple of times since the trial, to tell me his earth mage friend had been assumed dead at the Death King’s hands. Since he’d only been a temporary player who’d taken on the role of an NPC who’d joined the party temporarily, Devon pushed ahead with the game regardless.

  The doorbell rang—INCOMING!

  “That’ll be our food,” said Devon, rising to her feet.

  I did, too, and walked behind her into the shop. Cold air blew in when Devon opened the door.

  Brant stood on the doorstep. “Sorry, I got held up in the Parallel. Some vampires decided to ransack my house.”

  I hugged him. “Glad you could make it.”

  “As if I’d miss it,” he said. “You started without me?”

  “Devon insisted.” I planted a kiss on his mouth. “She won’t mind if we take a couple of minutes out.”

  “She looks like she might.”

  I released him and glanced over my shoulder, where Devon was giving me a signalling look. “Yeah, we have a new part of the campaign lined up with an epic villain.”

  “Oh?” He closed the door behind him. “I’m guessing some of our adventures made it into the game?”

  “You bet.” I led the way into the back room and picked up the lovingly painted miniature of the evil Lich Lord. “I have a new character I think you’ll all want to meet.”

  Thank you for reading!

  The story continues in the second book in the Order of the Elements series, coming soon.

  Find out more: smarturl.it/OrderoftheElements

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  I hope you enjoyed Thief of Souls. If you have a minute to spare, then I’d really appreciate a short review. For independent authors, reviews help more readers discover our books. I’d love to know what you thought!

  About the Author

  Emma is the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of the Changeling Chronicles urban fantasy series.

  Emma spent her childhood creating imaginary worlds to compensate for a disappointingly average reality, so it was probably inevitable that she ended up writing fantasy novels. When she's not immersed in her own fictional universes, Emma can be found with her head in a book or wandering around the world in search of adventure.

  Find out more about Emma’s books at www.emmaladams.com.