of sorts that looked as if it had been destroyed in a battle fought against the Titans.
I saw the massive Keystone laid on the floor, and I knew that something needed to be done for it to once again be put in its place.
I would have been able to lead him straight to it, but right now that wasn't why I touched the Eye. Because in my weakness, there was one more thing that I wanted to know.
So, I placed both my hands on the Eye, closed my eyes and let the power surge through me with its sole intent of looking to the past and finding out once and for all the truth.
Which meant the sob soon tore through me the second I realised that what Matthias had said was true…
Lucius… had a wife.
29
Past lives
After touching the Eye and letting it show me the past, I had to admit my heart sank when realising that Matthias was right.
He hadn't lied.
This witch, this Dalene, had once been Lucius’ wife! I didn't understand why or how or really any of the details, for the flashes of the past that were shown to me, half of them didn't make sense. But what I was certain of, was that Lucius had lied to me yet again, and that knowledge broke my fucking heart!
I had been numb when Matthias had started drawing from the power he had gained in the Temple of the Tree of Souls. One I had only helped with by foolishly adding to it. A power he now used against the monuments of stone as a way to create a portal. As soon as it was finished, he grabbed me, yanking me from my mother once more. I cried out in pain from the bite of his fingers and his rough treatment, before he stood me in front of the portal and placed a palm on my forehead. Then he demanded,
“Show me the Tartarus gate, show me where the Keystone is!” I swallowed hard, and did as he asked before he could hurt my mother again. Then, I closed my eyes, seeing for myself once more what the Eye had shown me, because I knew I had no other choice, he would kill my mother.
By the time I opened my eyes, a large portal that spread out between two of the stones appeared, and was one big enough that you could have driven a car through it. A portal that was now showing the place I had seen in my mind on the other side of a veil of shimmering air.
“Excellent,” Matthias said, after walking me through the portal and telling the witch,
“I cast the portal on the outskirts of Tartarus, for the Keystone will have to wait until after I am reunited with my old resting place… bring her mother,” Matthias said to Dalene, who bowed her head at her master.
“Tartarus,” I muttered in awe the moment we stepped through. As what faced us now was what was left of a once colossal mountain that looked as if an eruption had happened years ago. An eruption that had made half of it collapse back in on itself. We were stood on the side of a cliff that surrounded the landscape below, giving us an unrestricted view of the barren land hundreds of feet beneath us. Because the mountain was surrounded by the dry, open plains of a desert, one that looked like a bomb had gone off and wiped out all life. Like a dark wasteland, and one that looked like every depiction of Hell that had ever been painted, for all it missed was a river of fire snaking through the landscape. It sounded strange, but it was the most Hellish place I had come across yet in the entire realm.
Behind me, I heard my mother cry out as she was thrown through the portal and landed on the floor in a heap.
“Mum!” I shouted taking a step towards her, after first yanking my arm free. Then I crouched down closer to her as she lifted her head to look up at me.
“Both of you get up, it's time to get walking… but we have one more stop to make before we reach the Keystone,” Matthias said, in a stern tone that told us both we didn't want to see what he would do if we didn't obey his command. So, I helped my mother get to her feet and placed her arm around my shoulders to steady her.