Rowan could not believe his eyes. Whoever was responsible for this wanted to
frame him. He looked at his friends helplessly. They did not say anything. “Come
on, you. Its down to the dungeons for you.”

Said a guard, and they took him away. Sage reflected on the incident. It wasn’t
possible, it couldn’t be. He thought of how his face looked like in the pale
moonlight. Andrea had her own thoughts about it. She knew Rowan was innocent.

What happened to Kyra had shocked him as well as everyone. For that matter, why
would he shoot her? And how? Since they obviously went to the gardens to make
out, it just didn’t make any sense that Rowan tried to kiss and shoot her at the
same time.

Anubis looked at the golden arrow. It was a convincing imitation, but he felt
that it was a fake. Rowan’s arrows didn’t have dark magic. “Gandalf, can I see
that for a second?” He took the arrow and touched it.

It didn’t feel metallic, more like wood. He poured water over it. Slowly the
paint slid off to reveal a dark wooden arrow with the initials J.R. and the
family crest. Everyone stared at it, speechless.

Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Darkness Hides An Enemy…

The next days did not run smoothly as Kyra seemed to believe that she never
loved him. She shut him out of her mind, shrinking his heart to a pile of fine
dust. Only then did the Ronins start to notice his behavior.

That morning, when Cye woke up he saw Rowan sitting on the windowsill. “Hey
Rowan. Something wrong? Normally you sleep in late, and you’ve been up since…”
Cye looked at his watch. It read 1:00 a.m.

‘He’s been up since 8:00 p.m..’ Cye realized. Rowan turned to look at him. Cye
stared in horror at his face. It had a deadened, haunting kind of look, which
only got scarier because of the dark bags under his eyes.

Cye shook his head. What could have possibly happened to Rowan, his friend, and
an ally in the war with Talpa? This was NOT the Rowan he knew. “Don’t worry Ro,
she’ll be fine.” “You sure, Cye?” “Positive. Now go to sleep.” And both went to
bed.

Only 1 hour passed when silent footsteps were heard. Sage woke when he heard
them pass by. Getting up, he noticed Cye was also awake. Cye told him about
Rowan. Sage could see that Cye was worried about him.

They concentrated on following the footsteps. It led them to the library, where
they saw a dark figure stoking a fire. The figure then proceeded to cut herself
with a knife. She put the extra blood in bottle.

She cleaned herself and used a pint of blood on her right middle finger* (she
was still using her thumb ring.) She put it into the very heart of the fire.
Something strange happened.

The fire turned black, and Kyra smiled evilly to herself. Both Cye and Sage had
their faces frozen in horror as they ran to their bedrooms.