Chapter 6
Serenia
Rohan fought to control the irritation rising within him.
He spun away from the water and stalked to Kalyani’s hut.
He threw open the door, not bothering to knock or announce himself, because he had already been inside and knew it was empty.
Dread curdled his gut as he scanned the sparse interior, searching for anything that might tell him where his sister had gone.
Hurried footsteps approached. He looked over his shoulder to see Farah running up, her red hair woven into a thick braid, showing off her pointed ears and hazel eyes filled with concern. The setting sun reflected off her coppery skin, announcing her as a Wood Elf. She shook her head.
That unsettled feeling churned in his gut again. He’d lived with it for weeks after his youngest sister, Lata, had been kidnapped. Now, he was experiencing it again. “I never should’ve let her come here with us.”
Farah placed a comforting hand on his back. “We don’t know what happened to her.”
“The fuck we don’t.” He whirled around and stalked back outside, his gaze pausing on the water that stretched from one end of the horizon to the other. Nothing could keep Kalyani out of the water. “Did I ever tell you how she ran to the water as soon as she learned to walk?”
“Aye,” Farah replied softly as she came up beside him.
“That’s where she is.”
“Then you needn’t worry. You said it yourself. She’s the best swimmer around.”
Rohan looked at Farah. “She promised to tell me when she was going out for a swim.”
“Maybe she forgot,” Farah said, shrugging.
He faced his lover. “No one has seen her since last night, and there are only a handful of us in Serenia. Kalyani knows how dangerous things are. She wouldn’t just go off. She wouldn’t do that to me.”
Farah took his face in her hands and held his gaze. “We’ll find her, my love. I promise. We found Lata, remember?”
He yanked Farah against him and held her tightly, wishing he could dispel the fear that clutched his heart.
Part of him had hoped that Farah would tell him he was worrying for nothing, but he knew that wasn’t true.
Something had happened to his sister. It reminded him of waking and discovering that Lata and several other youths were gone from their village.
“I never wanted to feel this again,” he said.
Farah lightly skimmed her nails over his back. “I know.”
She was one of the few who actually understood what he was going through since her sister had also disappeared. The difference was that Farah’s sister had decided to work with the Masters. Rohan buried his face in Farah’s neck and inhaled the salty, sun-bleached scent of the ocean on her skin.
“I’m going to look for her,” he said as he pulled out of Farah’s arms.
Her brows snapped together, and she grasped his arm, drawing him back. “Is that wise? It’s getting dark.”
“I can’t stay here for another moment. I have to do something.”
“You’re not in this alone this time. I’m here. Jai, Arya, Ravi, and Yasmin are here, too. Dain should return soon. They will help.”
“Have you not found Kalyani?” Ravi asked as he walked toward them.
When Rohan looked at her, Farah shrugged and said, “We’re a team, remember? Of course, I told them.”
Rohan squeezed her hand in thanks. He was used to leading his people, to taking on everything by himself.
His village was no more. Most of his people had moved away from the coast. Only a few lingered.
It was out of a need for safety for them that he and those who had been actively fighting against the Masters had moved farther north and up the coast into a secluded cove.
There wasn’t a leader in Serenia. Farah was right. They were a team.
“She’s gone,” Rohan stated to the Sun Elf.
Ravi’s lips compressed a moment before he let out a long whistle. Shadows came out of nowhere as the two Dark Elves, Arya and Jai, stepped out of them. The wind whipped Ravi’s shoulder-length blond hair about as he searched the area where their huts were.
“I’m here!” called Yasmin.
Everyone turned toward the water and saw her climbing up the rocks from the opposite side of the cove.
Yasmin might be human, but apparently, she was also something called a Druid.
Rohan was still trying to figure out exactly what that was.
All he knew was that the rocks and stones seemed to communicate with her.
That’s when it hit him. She might be able to figure out what’d happened to Kalyani.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” Ravi told Yasmin as he hurried to her. His words might be harsh, but there was a smile on his face as he held out a hand to safely help guide her to land.
Yasmin dusted off her hands and shrugged her long, black hair over her shoulder as her deep blue eyes landed on Rohan. “I should’ve told you what I was doing, but I didn’t want to get your hopes up in case there was nothing to learn.”
“But you found something,” Arya said, a knowing gleam in her gray eyes.
Yasmin nodded and glanced at Farah. Her hesitation brought another wave of panic to Rohan.
His palms started to sweat, and his heart raced.
He couldn’t seem to catch his breath as he waited for the inevitable bad news.
The Masters wouldn’t just sit back and let Lata and the other villagers they had found go without some form of retribution.
Finally, Yasmin’s voice reached him. “The stones told me she went swimming before dawn.”
“See? I told you she was fine,” Farah said, a smile curving her lips.
But Rohan knew by Yasmin’s voice that there was more. He held his breath, anxiously waiting. Then…
“She went past your marker.”
They had argued heatedly about that marker. Kalyani wanted the option to go anywhere she wanted. He, on the other hand, didn’t want to worry about something happening to her. Rohan reminded her that she was in Serenia by his will alone, and if she wanted to remain, she needed to abide by his rules.
Jai’s light gray gaze searched the water. The sinking sun wasn’t as bright as during the day, but it still forced the Dark Elf to raise a hand to block the light. “How far out did Kalyani go?”
“Far,” Yasmin replied hesitantly.
Blood drummed loudly in Rohan’s ears. “Just tell me what happened.”
“She saw a ship and attacked it.”
Ravi jerked back. “She did what?”
“She wouldn’t have done that without reason,” Farah stated.
Yasmin wrinkled her nose. “It took some doing, but I eventually figured out what the stones were trying to impart. The boat was loaded with kidnapping victims.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Rohan said with a shake of his head. “She wouldn’t do that on her own.”
“The stones don’t lie to Yaz,” Ravi said.
Arya asked, “Did she free them? Or was she…?”
Taken. Rohan knew Arya didn’t say it for his benefit, but it didn’t matter. They all knew what she meant. The word hung in the air as he clutched Farah’s hand in a bid not to spin out of control. It was a losing battle.
Through the haze, he heard Yasmin say, “She surprised the crew and managed to free several prisoners before she was seen. There was a scuffle, and she got hit with magic before they bound her arms against her with chains and threw her into the water.”
Rohan’s knees buckled. The water was supposed to be Kalyani’s playground—the one place she excelled and could be herself. It was never meant to be her doom.
Farah dropped down beside him and wrapped her arms around him.
He kept seeing Kalyani sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor, looking up at the surface, waiting for him to find her.
He hadn’t been there for Lata, and he hadn’t been there for Kalyani.
It didn’t matter what he did or what lengths he went to for the safety of those he loved. Danger still found them.
“Rohan, love, look at me. I need you to focus on me. Right here, sweetheart. Look at me.”
He heard Farah’s words and followed her voice until his vision cleared, and he found himself staring into her beautiful, hazel eyes. “She’s gone.”
“You need to hear the rest of what Yaz has to say,” Farah urged.
It took a second for her words to penetrate the thick fog in his brain.
He frowned, and she gave him a firm nod as her hands fell away.
Rohan slid his gaze to Yasmin, who had lowered herself to her haunches.
He didn’t dare allow hope to get a foothold.
He was barely hanging on as it was. Instead, he braced himself for the worst.
“Kalyani was rescued and taken to a Sea Elf city,” Yasmin said.
“Taken to a…” He trailed off and shook his head. He couldn’t have heard that right. “Kal can hold her breath longer than normal, but she’d never survive underwater for that long.” He jerked his gaze first to Ravi and then to Arya and Jai, before finally landing on Farah.
Ravi shrugged. “I’ve never seen a Sea Elf city.”
Arya and Jai shared a look before shaking their heads. “Us either,” Jai answered.
“I’ve never heard anyone talk about them,” Farah said, lifting a shoulder. “I wouldn’t know where they are.”
Yasmin caught his attention. “The point is, Kalyani is alive.”
Rohan shifted his gaze to watch the waves roll onto shore and become foam before sliding back out into the ocean. “Why would they take her? Why not bring her to shore?”
“And are they working for the Masters?” Ravi asked.
He grunted as Yasmin hit him in his shin and shot him a dark look.
“He’s right to ask,” Rohan said. “She went up against a ship full of kidnappers. Who’s to say the Sea Elves weren’t working with them?”
Arya shot Jai a pointed look. “We know a Sea Elf.”
“We don’t even know her name. Once we saved her, she was gone, remember?” Jai said.
Arya grimaced. “How could I forget? Not even the Sea Elves who boarded the ship and tended to my wound spoke. I wish we had tried harder to get her name—or any of their names—for just such a reason as this.”
Farah stood and faced the water. “Maybe we go out and see if one finds us.”
“It could be a trap,” Rohan said, climbing to his feet. “Admit that you’re all thinking it. Why take Kalyani? They would know we’d go looking for her.”
“I don’t—” Yasmin began.
Jai said, “I don’t care if it is a trap. Kalyani is family. We’ll do whatever we need to do to bring her home.”
Tears pricked Rohan’s eyes. He would never ask any of them to do such a thing, but Jai’s words were a reminder that he didn’t have to.
“Wa—” Yasmin tried again.
Ravi rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Any excuse to bring the Masters and those working for them to their knees.”
“Enough!” Yasmin yelled, leveling Ravi and then Jai with a pointed look. Her face was drawn, her color pale. She inhaled deeply and then slowly released the breath. “If you could hear them, you would know the stones have been screaming—and they’re exceedingly loud.”
Rohan looked around him, noting the number of rocks and stones. If each of them had a voice, it must be deafening. “What are they yelling?”
“Kalyani wasn’t taken for the Masters. The Sea Elf in question—and aye, it was only one—saved her,” Yasmin explained, color returning to her face.
Arya smoothed back strands of her long, white hair that got caught in the wind. “I have so many questions about that.”
“We all do,” Rohan said.
Yasmin gave him a quick, sad smile. “That’s all the stones said. There might be more later, but that’s all I know.”
“She’s alive,” Farah said as she faced him. “Let’s be happy about that.”
“I won’t be happy until she’s home.” And Rohan would do whatever was necessary to ensure that happened.