Chapter Two
Farren
My eyebrows draw down with confusion as I realise that there isn’t anything on it that would harm me.
Carefully, I pick it up and put it in the pocket of my jumper.
Looking back at Poca, I say, “Come on, let's get back to the guys. I don’t like leaving them in that realm.”
Just as I get to Poca ready to take us back to the Void, the door to Aldrastos’ office opens, and instead of stepping into the Void immediately like I should, surprise has me staying where I am.
“Farren, I was hoping that I would run into you here,” Fitz greets me like he is completely unsurprised to see me in Aldrastos’ office by myself and would be more surprised if I weren’t here.
“Fitz?” I question because I am surprised to see him, and the last thing I heard about him was that he had completely lost it. He doesn’t seem to have lost his mind. Still, caution is required, just in case, so I gently ask, “Are you okay? I heard you weren’t doing too well.”
Fitz grins, “You heard that I was crazy?”
I shrug and answer honestly, “Yeah, pretty much.”
His smile widens, “Well, the best way to make sure that you’re left alone is to ensure that no one wants to talk to you or that they think that you have nothing of value to say.”
I let out a surprised laugh, “That’s very true. You said you were looking for me?”
His expression immediately becomes serious, “For all of you, actually, but I understand that the others aren’t here.”
“How do you know that the others aren’t here?” I ask, unable to help the edge of suspicion in my tone.
Fitz smiles again, except this one is full of knowledge, “I know all sorts of things. Like, for example, that you need to be getting going.”
I nod, still watching him closely. I like Fitz, but one wrong move and he will find himself at the end of my sword.
He continues, “The Warrior Teams who have not survived the Warrior Games are not dead, they’ve been taken.”
“What do you mean they’ve been taken?” I ask incredulously.
Of all the things that I thought he was going to say, that was not one of them. It doesn’t even make the list.
“They did not die like everyone was led to believe they did. In fact, they have been taken by Crem,” Fitz tells me, and I stare at him in shock.
“I wouldn’t normally share this information with such a young team, but I am aware of your strength, and quite frankly, you are some of the only people who can help them. ”
After a moment of staring at him, where I try to compute what he’s telling me, I ask, “They’re not in the Dragon Realm, are they?”
Fitz nods, looking surprised as he replies, “Yes, they are.”
“Of course they are. It would make sense that they were there. That’s where we assume Crem is,” I reply. “Why is Crem kidnapping the teams?”
“So that they can’t fight against them in the upcoming war, and I believe that he is hoping that some of them will switch over to his side as well,” Fitz replies, with a dark frown.
“I’m sorry, that’s all the information that I have for you right now.
I’m trying to find out more, but you must save them.
If he turns them against us, then the war will be tipped in their favour.
That is something that we cannot allow to happen. ”
I nod, but before I can confirm or deny whether we will help or not, he turns around and swishes out of the room in his big cloak as quickly as he entered it, and somehow, I’m still as confused, if not more so than I was when he first entered it.
There isn’t any doubt in my mind that we’re going to help the kidnapped Warrior Teams, of course we are. The question is, when?
We can’t up and go right now because we need to free the entrapped people in the cells of the castle and stop the realm from dying and tipping the balance.
That has to be our main priority because it affects the balance of all of the realms.
That, unfortunately, means that the Warrior Teams are going to have to hang on for a while. From what Fitz said though, it seemed like Crem wanted them for something, which means he won’t kill them.
I hope.
This is one of those situations that I hate to be in, the ones where I’m stuck between two difficult decisions, but the balance being tipped is the bigger threat currently, and in theory, the Warrior Teams should be able to handle themselves.
This is what they have been trained to handle after all.
It’s not until Fitz has disappeared and I’ve been staring at the closed door for a few minutes that I realise that he shouldn’t remember who Crem is, the goddess, who is apparently my mother- yeah, I’ve still not dealt with that one.
Anyway, she said that everyone apart from a select few had forgotten.
Well, Fitz is just a professor at Black Onyx Academy, isn’t he? So why does he remember?
Unless, of course, like most things in my life at the moment, he is not what he appears to be.
Something to add to the figure it out list. That list is getting really long at this point, and if I think too much about it, I’m going to get overwhelmed, so one thing at a time.
I need to get back to the others and fill them in on what just happened. If I were thinking about it properly, then I could have just opened up the bond lines so they could listen, but it didn’t even occur to me.
There is a lot going on right now, and my mind is kind of overwhelmingly full.
“Come on, Poca,” I say as I open up a door to the Void.
Except it’s not the Void, is it?
That’s going to take some getting used to.
“You’re back,” Aldrastos says with surprise and relief in his tone as Poca and I step through into the Void and back to where the group is.
I nod and chuck him the thing he asked me to get, and he stares down at it, dumbfounded.
While he’s staring at it, I explain what just happened to the guys, “Guess who I ran into.”
“What?” Kill asks. He raises an eyebrow, “I thought I said not to go looking for trouble?”
“I didn’t!” I reply. This time, they all give me raised eyebrow looks, even Aldrastos, who has apparently gotten over his shock that I brought the bone back.
I point at them all, “Okay, first rude. Second, I really didn’t go looking for trouble.
It found me, although it’s not technically trouble.
Well, it is, but I wasn’t in any danger. ”
“Farren,” Storm says with a smile. “What happened?”
“I was just about to come back here, since I’d gotten the bone and proven Aldrastos wrong.” I side-eye him, and I swear he tries not to smirk as his lips twitch, and he narrows his eyes at me. I continue, “Anyway, Fitz came through the door.”
“Fitz?” Loki asks, sounding as confused as I was. “Hasn’t he lost his marbles?”
“Apparently, that was a strategic move on his part to make people leave him alone,” I explain.
“Oh, that’s clever,” Khaos mutters, sounding impressed.
“He wasn’t surprised to see you in Aldrastos’ office?” Hades asks me with a slight frown.
I smile as I realise that he’s not in his glamour anymore and is in full Hades mode, I have to say I prefer it, although I understand why he needs to use it in certain situations.
You know, to make sure people don’t lose their shit when they see him. He doesn’t need to use it here, this is an ancient realm.
Refocusing I answer Hades.
I shake my head, “No, that was the weird part. He knew I was going to be there, and he knew that you guys wouldn’t be with me.”
“I didn’t think that Fitz got visions,” Zev says, his eyebrows drawn down.
Aldrastos shakes his head, “He doesn’t.”
Reaper raises his eyebrow and asks, “How can you be so sure?”
“I was looking for the team that would be able to help this realm. I did my research on the teachers as well. It’s not hard. The information is given to every new headmaster,” Aldrastos explains.
“That’s handy,” I reply, and then carry on because I really don’t think that we should be spending so much time out in the open when this is supposed to be a dangerous realm, even though it’s the Void and doesn’t feel dangerous to me.
“So, according to Fitz, the Warrior Teams who didn’t pass their trials aren’t dead like everyone thinks they are.
Crem has them in the Dragon Realm. He’s hoping that some of them will fight with him, and any who don’t can’t fight against him in the upcoming war because he’s kidnapped them.
They’re alive, so he wants to use them for something, or at least needs them alive for the time being. Fitz said that we had to rescue them.”
“The Dragon Realm, again?” Loki asks, throwing his hands up in the air, “For fuck sake. They need to police their borders better or sort their shit out and get on the right fucking side. Do they not realise that if there is a war, it will most likely be fought on their lands, considering that Crem is there, and that’s where they’re building their army? ”
“Crem has most likely realised that, which is why he’s there. If the Dragon Realm’s numbers fall because of the war, which they definitely will, then they will be easier to conquer, and he can take over the realm as well. He has always been a good strategist,” Hades adds thoughtfully.
Sometimes I forget that at one point, the princes and Hades actually got along.
They worked for him and helped him run the underworld.
Until they turned against him and betrayed him.
I’m not entirely sure when the switch happened, but I imagined that it happened gradually over time, and that they slowly decided that they wanted more power.
They wouldn’t turn against each other. Their family bond is too strong, or at least it used to be.
Azreal clearly stood up to his brothers, and it cost him his life.
So there’s a good chance that they’re loyal out of self-preservation if nothing else.
“We can’t do anything about it for the moment. They’re going to have to hold on,” Storm says with a worried frown.
Kill nods in agreement, “This needs to take precedence. Hopefully, we can get to them fairly quickly.”
“Agreed,” Rivals says. “We don’t actually have a choice. Everything will end if we were to leave now to go to the Dragon Realm.”
“They’ve been trained for this,” Mayhem adds. “Although if they haven’t been sent back, does that mean that someone has managed to mess with the Fae Realm, and how itdoes the Warrior Games?”
Hades shakes his head, “It’s very unlikely. But I agree that it is concerning.”
“Erm, guys, I really think that we should focus,” Zev points out.
“We need to get somewhere safe, and then we can discuss the other warriors,” Aldrastos adds, looking around nervously.
He’s not wrong. I don’t feel the same urgency that he feels, but then he sees this realm as a danger to him, but to me, this place has always been my safe space.
It’s where I’ve always come to escape the evil in my life, it’s never actually harmed me. Quite the opposite, it heals me.
“You do not need to rush as much as you think that you do,” Laikynn tells him almost gently.
“This isn’t what they told me,” Aldrastos frowns, although he doesn’t seem entirely surprised by the revelation.
“I am aware of the sacrifices you have made, Ferryman,” Laikynn starts, and Aldrastos tenses. “It would be my advice that should you choose to head back to the compound, you are extremely cautious. As you are aware, not everything is what it seems there, and it would not do any of you any good.”
We all look at Aldrastos.
“Care to explain?” Reaper asks, having been silently observing everything so far.
He seems more relaxed here than any of the others, and I wonder if he genuinely is as relaxed as he appears to be, or if he is just that good at hiding it.
Even Storm is tense as his eyes continuously study our surroundings, even though we are surrounded by darkness and there’s nothing to see.
It’s as pitch black as it used to be when I came to the Void.
Aldrastos sighs and runs a hand through his hair, “Not really, but it would appear that it is important that I do.”
“The more information that we have, the better we’re going to be able to help this realm and stop its demise from tipping the balance and bringing about, well, the apocalypse,” Rival summarises and then frowns.
“Well, that made it sound a thousand times more terrifying than it already was, and I thought it was pretty terrifying already,” Loki points out, shifting from foot to foot with nervous energy.
“Is it safe to talk out here?” Storm asks, his eyes darting around and studying the murky darkness that surrounds us.
“Can you tell us now, or should we continue with the plan and get somewhere safe. I know that it’s important that we get this information, but we’re quite exposed out here, and we’ve already been talking out here for quite a while. ”
“I don’t like it,” Khaos adds bluntly, his arms crossed over his chest.
Surprisingly, Laikynn is the one who answers Storm’s question, “You are safe for the time being. I have my pack creating a perimeter around us, and they will alert me if anyone approaches. You do not have long, though.”
“Thank you, Laikynn,” I smile, and he nods.
My instincts ping, and the ground buzzes slightly under my feet.
I continue talking, making sure that outwardly I don’t show any clue of what I’ve just realised.
“However, I do think it would be best if our conversation is not overheard, and although I trust your ability to keep us safe, I am not sure that I am willing to risk being overheard when such sensitive subjects are being discussed. I also think that it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to use too much of our magic right now, as it could gain the attention of the locals we don’t want to attract. ”