Chapter 152: Love Hurts
A month has passed since Alexandra left the capital city of Lathlin. She was staying in the underground tunnels where Arioch is staying. She has a separate room where she stays with Marcus. Arioch tried to get her to stay alone in a room, but she didn’t want to leave Marcus alone. And she made sure Marcus is around her all the time.
Arioch was pretty skeptical of her at first, but she did everything as he would want to. She praised him whenever she can and at times, she would talk to him as if he were Tubby. She affirmed the accusations Luke threw on her in their past life were true.
Luke loves to be proved right, even when he is wrong.
She played into all of his fallacies, and now he trusts her. Arioch wanted to keep the Choshech Orb in the gathering hall so that everyone will have access to it—for them to have a god to worship—as he said.
She could see that Inanis had started to communicate with Arioch. Inanis is in captivity for a long time and he shouldn’t know the language spoken by humans, but he was pretty fluent with it.
Alexandra stared at the Orb she keeps on her table. Inanis won’t affect her. And Marcus does not have a speck of darkness in him for he is a pure-hearted child. And so Inanis cannot corrupt anyone here.
But Inanis is reaching out to Arioch somehow and Arioch is insistent on keeping the Orb for everyone to look at. She knows why Inanis wants that. When Inanis is in contact with more people, he could feed on the darkness in them, and their fears, and he can get stronger.
She cannot let that happen.
A week back, Arioch was pretty insistent on bringing the Orb to the gathering hall, but she successfully distracted him by talking about Theodus and his father. She has sent an invite to Theodus to meet her. She had no hopes that he will meet her. He should be very angry at her for having a hand in his exile. He missed his family for three centuries. Although that is not a long time in the life of an Elf, it is enough time to miss one’s family.
Maximus had told her that Theodus is working for him and that he is still trying to find the entrance to his home. She wondered if Theodus met with Maximus in the past month. If so, she wanted to know how he is faring.
She talks to Ithildin often, and he says that Maximus’ darkness hasn’t expanded in these few days. But Ithildin said that he is preparing for war. Julius is with him and is keeping him from losing himself to darkness.
Alexandra wanted him to prepare for war. Because war is coming! And in that war, Maximus is going to lose.