Chapter 21 #2
In the next moment, both mine and Zayn’s phones were buzzing.
We pulled them out and opened the Group Chat, the three of us gathering close, phones between us.
Vaxan: Dragon auditory perception, darling little Ifrit.
Zayn: Shit, sorry. Can’t cast a spell in such close quarters to keep things quiet either or they’ll feel it and it’ll seem suspicious as fuck. So, what’s up? Where’s Win? Is he trying to grab one of those floating flute drinks again? They move so fast, I swear they’re only made for dragon reflexes.
I couldn’t help it. A giggle escaped me.
In spite of it all.
Evira: Winter is missing. Kai and Sylas also never showed.
Zayn: Sylas missing a big event of his son’s? Yeah, that’s way off base. Shit. You think Win’s had to head out with them somewhere? Some high-level magical situation? Ruxnoth, right? What else could it be with where things are at right now?
Vaxan: Let’s focus on tracking Winter first.
Evira: Agreed. If it doesn’t pan out, we’ll go the Sylas and Kai route.
Zayn: Gotta casually walk out of the crowds first, right?
Evira: Exactly, hellion. Like I’m giving you a tour.
Zayn: You already gave us a tour when we got here earlier. Not sure that’s gonna fly.
Vaxan: Then let them draw the other likely conclusion. That we’re seeking privacy to engage in some deep eroticized expression with each other.
Zayn: All this time and you still can’t call it ‘fucking’, huh?
Vaxan: As you wish: let them believe we’re ‘going to fuck’. Better, beauty?
Zayn shifted his weight, trying to hide the fact that he had to fix his tight little pants.
Evira: I’d say so.
Zayn: You better pay that off later, you sexy motherfucker.
Vax chuckled and stowed his phone away.
I blinked, trying to shove those words down—and the dirty images they’d conjured. Jeez. I stowed my phone away, Zayn doing the same, then we casually headed out through the crowds.
It didn’t take that long, fortunately.
Largely due to the optimal route that Vaxan mapped out and led the way through, weaving highly efficiently through the crowds and ensuring we weren’t stopped once and asked to talk with any key people.
As soon as we were clear, I grabbed them both either side of me, then teleported us to Vortimer Palace, just outside where there wouldn’t be guards every step of the way hearing and watching.
Now we were out of the crowds, it was possible to do a scent-track.
“It doesn’t make sense that Win would just take off without telling us,” Zayn muttered.
“He wouldn’t. I mean… unless…” His eyes shot wide.
“Unless he was hurt. He wouldn’t want anyone to see that.
Or if he was feeling that chill again, which could be noticeable to people around him.
He doesn’t want people seeing him as a problem.
And getting a taste of this reverence today for the first real time in his life, he would do everything in his power not to fuck with that.
I mean, it wouldn’t really fuck with it, but that’s just how Win sees it. ”
My throat tightened and I grimaced, reaching out and brushing my hand over Zayn’s cheek.
Vaxan scrubbed his hand over his face, struggling to contain his distress too.
Then he looked at me and managed in a steady tone, “You track his scent and I’ll—”
“No need,” Zayn interjected.
“What?” I asked.
“He still has my blood in his system. I can just lock onto my own magical properties. Two-second job now we’re clear of the crowds.”
And it really was a swift undertaking, his eyes flaming with his fuchsia power just for a couple of moments, before he then swung his head to our right, in the direction of the gateway into the Dracoryn Realm in the distance.
Just as he went to envelope us in his teleportation, something caught my eye.
A flare of amber magic.
“Stop,” I said, grasping his wrist.
I zeroed in.
And then I saw it.
A half mile in the distance, Winter was staggering through the snow, my view partially obstructed by the environment.
I grabbed them both and burst us over there.
We arrived just as Winter collapsed to his knees, and fought unsuccessfully to get back to his feet.
The three of us skidded to our knees beside him.
I went to reach out to him, but he was hurt. If I touched him, especially when I was in an anxious state, I could hurt him with my strength. Or even without, depending on the nature of the hurt.
“Win! What’s happened?” Zayn cried.
“Winter?” Vaxan spoke, frantically sweeping a wave of his citrine magic over him, performing a magical wellness scan.
Winter was shuddering, definitely feeling the cold.
Given that he couldn’t normally because of his death cold nature, it could only be one thing.
He caught my eye and rasped, “Yes. It’s started happening again. That awful chill from the withdrawal of that fucker’s… living warmth. Messing with my system. Just this morning it… came back. Was gonna tell you… after the… celebration. Promise… promise.”
“That isn’t what’s causing this collapse, though,” Vaxan rightly pointed out. “Where are you hurt? How so?”
Winter let out a cry and slammed his fist into the snow. “It’s not… it’s a painful pull… ripping at my… my system.” His eyes flared with his amber power. “One… second. Almost got it.” He looked out at us. “Get… back.”
“Win, what—”
“Now!”
The three of us moved back several feet.
In the next second, a roar tore from his throat, then a mini-shockwave of amber radiated out, then snapped back toward him almost instantly. It rushed all over him, until it shone from his skin, his clothes, covering him entirely.
“Son of a… there. Done,” he murmured to himself as he sprung back to his feet.
“What the fuck is going on, Win?” Zayn demanded, barging up to him.
After a couple of steadying breaths, Winter told us, “The chill situation… I had a glamor up. That’s why you didn’t notice.
I was honestly going to drop it once we were out of here, and then I was gonna tell you about it coming back.
But me collapsing and in pain is because I tagged that motherfucker’s magic. ”
Vaxan frowned. “That—Ruxnoth? You did what?”
“Oh, when you pushed your death stuff into him?” Zayn asked.
“Yes. I told you. I told you I wouldn’t let him get away. Couldn’t kill him, this was second best.” He started pacing. “I mean, when Ariana felt a spark from him and I didn’t, I thought it hadn’t worked. But this, feeling this now, obviously it did.”
I shoved a hand through my hair. “Then… you’re saying…?”
“I’m saying, I just felt that piece of shit’s power flare. All that struggle was it ripping through my system as a warning—and the punishing effect of me doing it at all.” His eyes flashed. “And me getting a lock on him.”
Son of a bitch. “You’ve seriously found him?”
He grinned. “Yeah. So, you wanna end this, or what?”
We rematerialized in Meforian Forest.
To… nothing.
Well, aside from the special gnarled silvery trees, and the soft mist clinging to the forest floor, alongside the gorgeous Celestial Eclipse Peonies all around, their velvety burgundy petals shimmering.
“Win?” Zayn called as we all started scanning the area. “Are you sure this is the right place? I mean, maybe it’s in another area of the forest? I’m sure you got the actual place correct.”
Vaxan and I moved strategically with our backs to the boys. If Ruxnoth was here in hiding, we’d be the first to register it. With him injured, we stood a high chance of being able to counter his speed before he was able to deliver any harm.
“Nothing yet,” Vaxan spoke, holding his hand out behind him to still Zayn who had been spinning around erratically. “Stay close, little Ifrit,” he rumbled, his serpentine eyes coming to the surface, his scales doing the same.
I could feel my eyes blazing with my glacial power in response too, that itch to shift into dragon form right there.
Winter was oblivious to our blocking and even ducked under my arm and stepped beyond it, holding his hands out and calling his amber power to either palm.
“Winter!” I called.
He was too focused, and instead I heard him murmuring to himself. “This isn’t right.”
“Not the right place?” I asked.
“It’s okay, Win,” Zayn said. “You still have the lock on him. We’ll get it. Let’s just try again. I’m totally cool with it not being this place anyway. This misty stuff kind of creeps me out.”
“Unsettled by mist, yet barely one little bit when you were in the Basilisk Dominion with me,” Vaxan commented, actually making me grin, despite the tense situation.
How did they do this to me?
How did we do this to each other?
“No. This isn’t real,” Winter spoke again.
“You’re referring to an illusion?” Vaxan questioned.
“Yes.”
In the next moment, Winter swept his glowing hands over the space between the trees in front of him, about thirty feet across, his magic traveling the distance.
And then we all watched in a whole lot of surprise as a film we hadn’t been able to see or even sense at all before peeled away—a crimson film.
And then we took in the sight of four powerhouses standing there.
Sylas, Kai, and Ketheron were gathered around Ambrose.
They were talking, but it was imperceptible.
Until Winter impacted the illusion again, and their voices gravitated toward us.
“I can’t believe it, yet I also can,” Ketheron was saying as he wrapped an arm around Ambrose, all four of them gazing at something between them that we couldn’t make out from our vantage point with them gathered so close.
“Ah, is there anything more satisfying than turning the tables on a megalomaniacal heathen by using their own despicable creations against them?” Ambrose breathed.
“Really, my gorgeous?”
Ambrose registered what Ketheron was obviously getting at, his eyes glinting at him. “Obviously aside from that.” He stroked Ketheron’s cheek. “The magic we make together is far beyond mere satisfaction, just so we are absolutely clear.”
Kai cleared his throat. “As much as I love this whole thing for the two of you—”
“Aww, let them have their moments, it’s sweet,” Sylas said.
Wow.