18 BAEL
THE INN, VILLAGE OF FORLORN
I barely noticed or cared as the sound of breaking glass rattled through the room.
Scion tore through the tavern of the dilapidated old inn, smashing tables and chairs, flipping over shelves and breaking windows. Destruction chased him, leaving a mess of splintered wood and shattered glass in his wake. I’d seen Scion break dozens of things over the years, and today was no different.
Well, it was no different except for the fact that I almost felt like joining him.
“Stop,”
I heard myself say. “This isn’t helping anything.”
My cousin fixed me with furious silver eyes. “Maybe I’m not trying to fix anything.”
That much was obvious, and it was hard to demand he stop when I had little idea what to do myself.
Only yesterday, I’d been the closest to happy I could ever remember being. Lonnie had stopped fighting me at every turn, and even Scion seemed to be calming down, his legendary rage quelled by her presence. We were alive, and all together, and then…nothing.
I’d awoken this morning to Scion’s angry yell, and rolled over to find the space beside me in bed entirely empty. Lonnie’s honey and magic scent was long gone, and for once in my life I had no fucking idea what to do.
Part of me wanted to be angry, to lash out at her for causing such chaos, but I could have turned this entire building to dust, and it wouldn’t have fixed anything. It wouldn’t explain what happened. It wouldn’t tell me how she could leave without a single word.
Another splintering crash rattled the very floor we stood on, and I looked up. The dining room of the inn was in splinters, and Scion stood in the very center of all the wreckage. His shoulders shook as he breathed hard, spinning around and scanning the floor, no doubt looking for something else to destroy.
I ran a hand through my hair, annoyed. “Perhaps you could put all that energy into searching.”
He ignored me, and instead took a jerking aggressive step forward, shadows rising around him to tear the very rafters from over our heads. Instinctively, I leaned back, wincing as a heavy wooden beam smashed on the floor some two feet from where I was sitting.
It wasn’t that I was afraid of my cousin—far from it. He’d been the only real friend I’d had growing up, and I knew it was only because of him that I wasn’t shipped back to my father at birth.
A bastard, half-Unseelie prince would never have been allowed in the high court of Elsewhere, except that Ambrose had just left a mere few years before, and there was concern that Scion, the new heir, wouldn’t have any peers to socialize with. Like an overgrown house cat, I’d been practically gifted to my cousin as a companion—it was a role I never resented, but it did set the parameters for our relationship practically in stone. I never commented on his tantrums in a way that he could take seriously, and I never challenged him—that was, until recently.
“I’m telling you, she left on her own,”
I said for perhaps the third time this hour. “Destroying everything will not help.”
“Don’t say that as if it’s a fact,”
he barked back, smashing another chair against the already condemned bar.
“Isn’t it?”
I laughed bitterly. “Have you met Lonnie? Whatever the simplest thing to do is, she will inevitably do the opposite.”
Scion glared at me. “She could just as easily have been taken.”
I groaned. We couldn’t keep arguing about this. “Whether Lonnie was taken or not, it barely matters. Either way, we have no idea where to begin looking for her.”
Knowing that nothing would have changed since last I checked, I rolled my eyes into the back of my head, searching.
Visions of the forest path crossed through my consciousness, but it was like searching for a single tree within the woods. All I could see was the same stretches of woods over and over, like a reoccurring nightmare meant to drive me out of my mind. It was made all the more difficult because I could only search in areas I’d either been or knew well, where the spirits whose eyes I borrowed felt familiar.
“Anything?”
Scion asked.
I blinked, and returned my gaze to the room in front of me. “No. You try.”
He rounded on me. “And how the fuck do you suggest I do that? You’re the one who can—”
he broke off, waving his hand beside his right eye. “Do whatever it is that you do.”
“Check in with your stupid bird,”
I sighed. “Didn’t he find Lonnie before?”
I held my breath, a tiny shred of hope lighting inside me, as he fell silent, his eyes sliding out of focus. I had no fucking idea how he talked to that demonic creature, or if indeed he was speaking at all, or perhaps seeing through its eyes as I did with the departed. It didn’t matter, however, if the bird found her I’d never threaten to kill it again.
“Nothing,”
Scion said roughly, returning his gaze to me. “He’s circling the Wanderlust marshes, now.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
He gritted his teeth. “Because she’s nowhere in the forest, and the marshes are only a few hundred miles away. I couldn’t think of anything else.”
I groaned. A few hundred miles would be impossible for her to travel by foot, and as far as I could tell, Lonnie could so far only use her magic when she was in imminent danger. But, if she’d finally managed to shadow walk without first being under attack…it was possible, I supposed. Improbable that she’d manage to get so far, but I wasn’t going to shoot down any ideas at this point. “What we really need is a seer.”
“You’re supposed to be a damn seer,”
my cousin snapped back.
“Barely,”
I replied darkly. “But if you think my taking a nap will help I’d be happy to try it.”
He said nothing. We both knew my minor prophetic talent was far below the caliber we’d need for something like this.
“We could contact my mother,”
I said halfheartedly, already knowing it was a terrible suggestion.
Scion snorted a derisive laugh. “That would be the height of desperation.”
“I am fucking desperate, aren’t you?”
He didn’t answer, and with little else to do, I lowered to the floor and sat with my back against one of the few remaining walls. My eyes rolled again, and I moved my search further—back to Inbetwixt, to the harbor, the city, even the quarry where the second hunt was held.
As I searched—not expecting to find anything—I tried to think of where we might find a seer.
The ability to see into the future was a common trait among those with magical abilities. It was so widespread that nearly anyone with magic might get a vision or two in their lifetime. Those small flashes, however, were almost nothing compared to a talented seer.
Because of Grandmother Celia—and I supposed, whatever ancestor she’d inherited her talents from—prophecy was even more common in our bloodline than most.
My mother was a dream oracle, but her talents lay in large scale phenomena. Wars, important deaths, major weather events. She was excellent at predicting earth tremors, but terrible at noticing anything that stood directly in front of her. Conversely, I’d been known to have the occasional prophetic dream as well, but only about mundane things, and nothing as strong or as clear as we would need at present.
I wasn’t looking for just any dream oracle or someone with a light prophetic gift; I needed the best. Someone who could see every possible path, every decision, long before they occurred.
We needed Grandmother Celia.
Or—the irony nearly choked me—we needed Ambrose.
I blinked, the room coming back into focus, and looked sideways at my cousin. The war had made him bitter and he hated his brother far more than I did. I couldn’t imagine that he’d simply put that aside, now. Though he’d spoken to Ambrose before in regard to Lonnie, perhaps he’d do it again now if it meant finding her.
“Listen…”
I began slowly, unsure how to broach the subject without getting a chair thrown at my head. “What if?—”
“You seem far too calm considering your mate is missing,”
Scion blurted out, interrupting me as if he hadn’t heard a word I’d been saying.
Distracted from what I’d meant to ask, I narrowed my gaze on him.
He was wrong. I wasn’t calm at all, far from it in fact. I’d simply shut down, unable to think beyond anything but the present moment. If I let myself get as angry as Scion had the luxury of being, if I let the monster in the back of my mind out to play, I’d lose control.
Losing control for me wasn’t as manageable as it was for the rest of my family. If my magic leaked as Scion’s shadows did, I could destroy an entire village. If I removed the wall I constantly kept around my mind, I’d shift into my other form by mistake, and then we’d have an entirely different problem. I needed to maintain the appearance of calm…for now.
“Don’t say that as if she’s only mine,”
I hissed. “Look at the state of this fucking room, this is not the behavior of someone who doesn’t care.”
He glared at me. “I’m only pointing out, you seemed far more concerned during the second hunt.”
“Of course,”
I snapped. “Then, I knew she was in danger. There was a gigantic fucking snake…”
I trailed off, realization dawning. Ambrose was not the only seer in the area.
“A snake?”
Scion asked. “I never heard about a fucking snake.”
I ignored him, my eyes rolling again as I flicked through various angles of the quarry. This time, I wasn’t looking for Lonnie. My target now was much, much larger.
Finally, I spotted a disturbance in the water, enormous ripples covering the surface as if something large and serpentine were moving just out of sight. With an excited shout, I jumped to my feet. “I’ve got it.”
“Where is she?”
Scion demanded, the mingled panic and relief evident in his tone.
“Not Lonnie,”
I said, grinning as I returned my eyes to his. “But I know how we’re going to find her.”