Chapter 28
Wolfe
“The Price of Destiny”
Istood in my office at Vyrenth Hollow, staring at nothing.
The room was intact. No shattered furniture. No broken glass. But it felt wrecked all the same. Maps and rune stones that had led nowhere lay scattered across my desk.
The air was thick with residual magic from Bastian and Arielle's tracking spells, Alaric's attempts at scrying, Garrick’s tracing sprite’s magic, and my own desperate reach through every thread of power I could summon.
Nothing had worked.
Nothing.
Everyone had tried. Everyone had failed.
As a last resort, I’d dispatched them across the kingdom to search on foot to follow any leads we could find.
I’d just returned from Hyxian. I’d hoped that Elariya may have gone there to get some books on spells. But my attempt was as fruitless as everything else.
My mage had everything she needed inside her.
She’d shut the door on all of us, especially me. And I truly couldn't feel her.
The bond that had hummed beneath my skin since the moment we'd been shackled together was as silent as the grave.
Elariya had used her time magic to hide herself. To sever any trail that could lead us to her.
Clever girl. She’d figured out a way to almost bend reality around herself, folding her existence into a pocket of time none of us could reach.
She didn't want to be found.
And she'd made damn sure no one could find a way to get around her plans.
The last time the bond had gone this silent, I'd been the one to choose it.
I'd unlocked the shackle and disappeared when I’d found out about Zyrra.
I was seeking solace. Little did I know it would be the method Elariya would choose to leave me.
She'd outplayed us. Outplayed me.
Executed her plans flawlessly to vanish without a trace.
I hadn't felt this outplayed since I was a boy trying to navigate court politics with my father's shadow looming over me.
The only person I knew who could command time the way Elariya had was the Seer. Not that Elariya’s magic was on par with the Seer’s. It was her rare ability.
Her plan was ingenious. Credit was all hers.
But she was out there alone and vulnerable, with no real understanding of this realm.
Hours had passed.
Night would come soon
And wherever she was, she was alone.
My Echo Ravens had returned throughout the day, confirming she hadn’t crossed into the mortal lands nor entered any ethereal plane.
Which meant only one thing.
She was still here.
Still in Galaythia.
And that was almost worse.
Galaythia wasn't safe for someone like her.
Every dark thing that wanted her would feel her eventually. Even if they couldn’t track her.
She would have known that. But she took the risk anyway for her family.
Guilt settled into my chest like weighted stone.
I'd pushed her too hard. Held on too tightly. Tried to control a situation I couldn’t control.
And now she was gone.
The door opened.
I didn't turn. Didn't need to. I knew the sound of Alaric's measured footsteps. Like mine, it was the kind that announced your presence without demanding it.
He stopped a few paces behind me.
"It failed," he said, his voice low and ragged.
There was no preamble. No attempt to soften the blow. Just the truth, delivered flat and grim.
My jaw tightened. I turned to face him, finally meeting his gaze. "Ready to tell me ‘I told you so’?" The words came out sharper than I intended, laced with bitterness I hadn't meant to let show.
Alaric didn't flinch. "That's not going to help anyone." The calm tone he took with me was the same one he used when he was talking someone down from a fight they couldn't win.
I hated how reasonable he sounded.
Hated that he was right.
"You're still angry with me." It wasn't a question.
Alaric's expression didn't change, but something raw and unguarded flickered in his eyes. "Fuck yeah, I am. You never listen.” His voice was edged with rage. "You never include me. You make decisions alone—always fucking alone—like the rest of us are just pieces on a board you're moving around."
He took a step closer, his frustration bleeding through the cracks in his control.
"Why choose me as your Bloodsworn? Or your Veythral? If you don't trust me—your own fucking brother—enough to actually talk to me before you make choices that affect all of us?"
His brutal honesty hit harder than I expected.
Maybe that was because he’d sounded like Arielle—ready to quit and walk away from following my lead.
"You knew I wouldn't agree to sending Elariya back," I confessed.
Alaric seethed. "I hoped you'd see sense."
"Sense?" I echoed, the word tasting bitter.
"Yes. Sense, Wolfe." He gestured sharply, his frustration boiling over.
"The mortal lands are contained danger. Controlled.
We could've monitored her, kept her safe from a distance.
But this?" His voice dropped, deadly serious now.
"Her loose in Galaythia, alone, with the enemy seeking her, is so much worse. "
I bowed my head.
The weight of everything pressed down on my shoulders. Every choice I'd made, every mistake I'd convinced myself was to protect Elariya. But it was to no avail because it played into my own selfish desires to keep her.
“I have to find her, Alaric.”
On hearing the desolation in my voice, Alaric's anger faded, replaced by something steadier.
"We'll keep looking," he said quietly. "We'll find her."
"But when? I want her here now.” Not knowing where she was, was driving me fucking crazy. I wanted to tear my skin off. “There has to be something we're missing. Some spell, some artifact, some rule we haven't considered."
“And we’ll find it.”
“Every moment she’s out there alone pushes her closer to danger.”
I turned back to the desk, my hands bracing against the edge as my mind spiraled through every possibility I'd already exhausted a dozen times.
Tracking spells, rituals, limitations of time magic, rules that governed bonds and shackles and the threads that tied souls together.
There has to be something.
But even as I searched, a darker thought crept in.
What if I was already too late?
What if the reason we couldn’t find her was because something happened?
If she was hurt. Captured. Or worse.
Merciless Gods.
I wouldn’t survive it.
I didn’t want to.
Alaric was about to speak when the double glass doors flew open.
Wind surged into the room, carrying the sharp bite of magic.
Papers scattered. Candles guttered out. The air itself seemed to crack with energy.
Then a flurry of Nyzith strands fluttered inside, riding the edge of the wind.
They danced through the air in twisting spirals, catching the light like fragments of stars given form.
I stiffened and stared, completely enthralled.
Gods be good. This wasn't random.
It was a message.
Something from the ring. And destiny.
I only ever saw the strands when I was being guided. The last time I saw them was in Morg?ven, when Elariya and the others rescued me.
She’d seen them, too.
"Do you see the strands?" I muttered, almost afraid they’d disappear.
Alaric frowned, his gaze sweeping the room. "I don't see anything, Wolfe."
Of course, he didn't.
They were meant for me. The only other person who would have been able to see them was Elariya.
“Nyzith strands.”
Alaric searched the air. “Where do you see them?”
“Right in front of us.”
They must have come here to help me find Elariya. She was my tracker. The ring wouldn’t have wanted me to lose her. Neither would destiny.
The dancing strands thickened into a dark mass of gunmetal, then something dropped from the center of the spiral.
It was a book. A heavy thud echoed through the room as it hit the floor.
I went rigid. I knew that book.
Leather-bound, worn at the edges, with symbols etched into the cover that had faded with age but never lost their meaning.
It was my father's book. We kept it on the ship.
He’d enchanted it many years ago to show you the path to what you wanted most.
The Nyzith strands suddenly dissolved into nothing, and the wind died as quickly as it had come.
I crossed the room and picked up the book, my fingers tracing the familiar grooves in the leather.
"But it's just a spellbook," Alaric said from behind me, his tone skeptical. "That won't find her. None of the spells have been able to find her so far.”
"Nyzith strands don't appear randomly," I muttered. "Remember, they appear when the ring's magic is allowed to guide me." I turned the book over in my hands, feeling the hum of power beneath the leather. "When destiny has a hand in something."
"Destiny." Alaric came closer. “Holy fuck. What kind of magic did Father use to enchant the book?”
I smiled. “A touch of destiny.”
We both looked at each other.
“Destiny exists outside time,” Alaric surmised.
“And outside of Elariya's spell.”
Eagerly, I opened the book. As soon as I did, it reacted. Pages flipped rapidly, edges glowed, and the air around it shimmered.
On the blank parchment, a map formed.
I’d used this book many times before to go off on an array of adventures. But this was the first time the map had glowed silver, pulsing like light.
“You can see that, right?” I asked.
“I see it.” Alaric nodded slowly, his gaze never leaving the map.
At its center, a single point of light twinkled.
It was…
Her.
The word Crookwood spelled out around the twinkling point.
“That’s where she is.”
No sooner had I spoken than a cloud of darkness formed around the words, then erased Elariya’s light.
It swallowed her whole, snuffing out the light completely.
My heart stopped.
Fuck. Darkness could only mean one thing.
Danger.
"Summon everyone." I was already opening a portal. "We have to go. Now."