“I guess the Cliffs and the Dark Elms.”
His head tilted again. “The Dark Elms?”
“The forest.” I turned and gestured to the elms in the distance. “That’s what Ian called them.”
Delano strode forward, his features marked with curiosity. “Interesting. We’ve been calling them something similar.”
I arched a brow. “Because they look like the sun can’t penetrate them?”
“That, but mostly because they give off…weird vibes,” he remarked, staring at them. “Not necessarily bad, just…unwelcoming. Like they’re already occupied.”
A wave of surprise washed over me. “Can the wolven sense spirits?”
His brows shot up as he looked over at me. “We can sense the unnaturalness that accompanies them. Sometimes, we don’t always know that’s what we’re feeling.”
My eyes widened. I’d been half-joking when I asked that. My attention shifted back to the Dark Elms. Hadn’t Tawny once mentioned seeing a spirit in the—
Tawny.
My chest felt as if it were being split open as I thought about having to tell her what I’d done. How did one go aboutconfessing they’d taken someone’s soul? Better yet, how did you tell your first true friend they would eventually sour and rot from within and become something monstrous without it?
Feeling Delano’s stare, I drew in a ragged breath. “Ian told me the forest was full of spirits too afraid to pass on and face judgment.”
“Really?” Delano tipped his head back. “He may have been on to something. That’s probably what we’ve been feeling.”
Well, now I had even more reasons never to go into them.
“Sometimes, I wonder if Ian was part Seer,” I said with a shake of my head. “He told me so many things that I believed were just fantastical stories that are now turning out to be true.”
“Maybe he was.” Delano angled his body toward me. “Leopold and Coralena were his parents, right?”
“Yes, but…” But what? I frowned. It felt like I was forgetting something, but nothing came to me. “That’s what I’ve been told. But I honestly don’t know for sure.”
“I wonder if Millicent knows.”
I pressed my lips together. She might. I could ask her. That was if I ever saw her again. Something quite…horrifying popped into my head then.
Eythos was my great-grandfather, which meant Kolis was my great-granduncle. And while I’d already known that, it was before I learned about the whole Sotoria thing.
My upper lip curled in disgust. Did Kolis realize that? Would it matter?
Probably not.
Ew.
Shaking those thoughts from my head, I glanced at Delano. He practically vibrated with curiosity.
“Did you happen to notice that it was snowing this morning?” he asked.
I blinked. “What? It was snowing?”
“Well, flurrying,” he replied. “But yeah.”
“It has never snowed here,” I murmured, frowning. “Was it even cold enough for it to snow?”
“I don’t think so,” Delano said. “But then again, it takes a lot for me to feel the cold.” He crossed his arms. “I guess it’s more of the whole destabilization thing.”
I sent him a curious look.
