Bonded Ever After (The Royal Gold Keepers #3)

Chapter 12

TWELVE

Elora

The fire crackles near us, and we lay together in my family cabin, holding each other. We haven’t spoken. We’d just crawled into bed, shaking together like leaves, trying to let the adrenaline fade from what we’d just been through.

But my mind can’t seem to quiet.

Too much had happened, more than my brain could possibly process.

“We can never go home,” I say, my voice breaking a little.

He holds me tighter. “Home is anywhere the two of you are.”

His words make me smile as his hand strays to my stomach. “You know what I mean. Callum, what are we going to do?”

“It’s simple,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “We’re going to choose a place to make our own.”

A place to make our own? “What, in the woods where our child can be eaten by ogres? Or we can live constantly terrified of a storm? Or in the Mist Realm, where one wrong step could have our child splattered on the ground? Or maybe whatever the hell is in an Ash Realm?”

Callum chuckles. “Take deep breaths. Let’s figure this out.”

I take a few deep breaths, but I don’t feel any calmer. I have a baby growing inside of me. A baby that will soon be walking and talking. A baby who will never have a friend or a partner. A baby who will one day be left here alone, after we pass.

“We have a lot of goldarium. We could build an epic home here. Then, we could build large walls to surround it, start a garden, and build a whole little farm.”

I think, then shake my head. “This place can’t be where we raise our child. There’s nothing here for them. What will they do if something happens to us?”

He’s quieter for another long minute. “How about the mist realm? That tree guy was pretty friendly, and it sounds like he has more people, even if there’s not a lot of them. Didn’t he offer to build us a home in a tree? As far as we know, these are the only people in Neverwood. We can stick close to them.”

“I don’t know…” I say.

The Mist Realm doesn’t feel like home either. If it was just Callum and I, maybe that would be where we’d go, but our baby deserves better than that. A safer place. Besides, there’s this nagging feeling in me… a feeling that’s telling me we have to keep going. That there’s something better out there for us.

“I-I think I want to try to find the end of the Phoenix Trail.” The source of all goldarium. The thing of legend that our fathers likely went in search of.

“You’re hoping to find them,” he says simply.

Our fathers. My father. So what if I am? Would it be the worst thing for our child to have a loving grandfather in their life?

Tears sting my eyes. “They’re all we have left now.”

He takes a ragged breath. “And you know there’s a chance we won’t find them, no matter how far we go. And a chance that whatever is further down the path is worse than where we’ve already been.”

I swallow around the lump in my throat. “I know, but I feel like we have to take the chance. We have to provide our baby with the best life we can, even if it’s in Neverwood.”

He’s quiet for a long moment.

I look back at him, and his expression is thoughtful before his gaze slides to me, and he kisses me. “Okay. We keep going. As soon as we can.”

“As soon as we can?” I ask.

He nods. “Honey, you’re just going to get bigger, and traveling is just going to get harder.”

I hadn’t thought about that. “You’re right.”

It’s weird. My gut says this is the right move, but I’m full of nerves. We’ll be traveling into uncharted territory, pregnant, and with only Callum at my side. There’s no heading back to Paradise Falls to rest. There’s no cheeseburger and fries waiting for us at the end of a long day. There’s only… Neverwood.

“Do you think our friends will be okay?”

He kisses my head again. “Teth and Beva will be leaving on the first flight out of there tomorrow, so they should be fine.”

My mind keeps working. “What do you think is going to happen to Paradise Falls?”

He hesitates.

“Be honest.”

He nods. “Paradise Falls only has one resource: goldarium. That’s what they use to trade with the outside world. They don’t grow their own crops. They don’t have their own stock of animals. Without goldarium, everything will descend into chaos. There will be no food, no electricity, nothing.”

My heart’s racing. “So then they’ll fly everyone out?”

He hesitates again. “No, the wealthy will probably fly out. The rest will probably be left behind.”

I turn in the bed to face him. “They’ll just leave most of the population behind?”

“Flying people out will cost money. Money that will be precious to them,” he says, as if that justifies everything.

So, everyone will be left there to die? With no food? No resources? And no way out?

“I–”

He pulls me closer to him and tucks my head under his chin. “They’ll probably have some time before everything falls apart, but it’ll be better if we don’t think about it. At least our friends will get out.”

That’s true. Our friends will be safe. And as much as I hate thinking about all those people just being abandoned, my focus needs to be on Callum, our child, and myself. If I don’t stay focused, we might not survive.

“You’re right,” I say, even though my heart is aching, thinking about all the people who will likely die in that valley, or die in the mountains trying to get out.

He clears his throat. “Also, something I don’t want to say but need to: we got what we found of their goldarium. We can hope it’s all of it, but it might not be.”

I tense. “Are you saying they might be able to come after us?”

“Yes,” he says softly. “So we have to get moving, and we have to keep up a fast pace. Until we’re sure they won’t be able to find us.”

This is all so scary. So scary and so overwhelming. Neverwood isn’t safe. Paradise Falls isn’t safe. And we have a baby on the way. A baby we need to protect from everything in this world.

“What should we do?”

He sighs softly. “We should get moving. Tonight. We can’t have done all of this just to be caught by them. Our Little Bean has to stay safe.”

“LIttle Bean?” I ask, lifting my head and looking at him.

“Yeah, don’t they look like beans at this stage?”

They do. I wouldn’t think Callum would know that.

I smile. “Yeah.”

He smiles back. “So, they’re our Little Bean.”

I laugh. “Okay, Little Bean it is.”

He squeezes me tightly, then rolls out of the bed. “Let’s get going. We can go over baby names on the way.”

It’s clear he’s trying to distract me, to get me to think about something other than Paradise Falls crumbling, or the Council coming after us here, so I try to smile as I gather my stuff and focus on baby names. Because what else can we do?