“It sounds like you know him personally,” she said.
“I do.” Alston grimaced. “Once upon a time, he might have even considered me a friend, if not only an ally. I had hoped in the time I spent with him that he might be open to the cause of the Order. But after a while, I realized he would never understand our mission.”
“So you think that even if the djinn is there, he won’t be a threat?” Myanin asked.
“Correct,” Alston said.
“Even on the battlefield here,” Ludcarab said, “the djinn wasn’t causing major damage. The sprites were actually the ones giving us a run for our money.”
“Sprites?” Myanin was surprised that the elusive supernaturals had stepped out of their own realm. “Do you have sprites that support the Order?”
“We’re still working on a few supernatural races,” Ludcarab admitted a bit begrudgingly.
“If we’re going to attack their Keep, then we need to make a plan and get our warriors ready.” Sincaro’s black eyes appeared a little wild.
“Agreed,” the elf king said. Then, to her surprise, he looked at her. “Do you have the memories of your people?”
“You mean am I a history keeper?”
“Correct.”
“No, but I have acquired some of the history recently.” When Sincaro—who seemed to be the curious one of the bunch—opened his mouth, she held up a hand to stop him. “How I acquired that history is my own business.”
“And in that acquired information,” Ludcarab continued, “did you gain any past knowledge on the wolves and their fighting techniques?”
“You mean like strategy?” Myanin closed her eyes and pictured the vault of memories she’d taken from Lyra and then sifted through them. She kept thinking over and over in her mind, “wolves at war.” She had no idea if that was going to get her to the information she was looking for, but it felt like the right thing to do.She began counting, attempting to track how long it took before something happened. She made it to one hundred before her mind stopped, and she was on a battlefield filled withCanis lupus. Most of them were in their wolf form, though some did fight in their human form. It was dark and cold. She could see the breath of the wolves as they lunged at one another, jaws open and eyes wild with the rage of their beasts. She heard a voice and turned her head at the sound.
“Fall back,” a tall male yelled. “Get out of range.” She watched as the wolves he must have commanded began to do as he asked. Their enemy seemed to think they’d won, that the other wolves were retreating. But then Myanin heard the unmistakable whiz of soaring arrows through the sky. Anyone who trained with archers would know that sound in their sleep.
The arrows arched downward and picked off the wolves that had been celebrating their supposed victory one by one. It was a smart strategy, though the leader of the wolves who’d retreated would have managed to keep the full attention of their enemy while the archers moved to the side of the enemy in order to gain their back and be able to attack from behind. Just as she was about to pull out of the memory, she felt something inside of her stir, but it wasn’t her own power. It was the power she was tapping into—the elder’s power. Myanin focused, trying to figure out what it was she was feeling. In her mind's eye, she could see images in time, streamlined but moving and flowing like a river. But suddenly the streamlined images undulated, as if a stone had been thrown into the river, causing a ripple effect, and the images were distorted. Then another ripple came, much larger, causing the images to disperse and return in disarray.What the…? She tried to focus on what she’d just seen. Then she felt the elder’s presence—her power, her ability—coming through loud and clear, and a realization struck Myanin. Lyra had apparently been able to mess with people’s minds, confusing their memories. The elders were powerful, but they claimed not to use their specific powers unless absolutely necessary. What she’d just seen was a vision of Lyra confusing someone’s memories.
Myanin’s heart beat a little faster as she began to understand what this might mean if she was able to use that power now that she possessed Lyra’s magic. She would be able to keep Thadrick from recording history correctly. She heard a voice saying her name, and she immediately held up her hand. “Don’t interrupt. If you ask me a question and actually want me to figure something out, then at least have more patience than a toddler and let me get your answer.”
She continued to focus on the power she’d discovered and then turned her attention to what had happened in the past half hour. She took the memories and imagined them as pictures tossed into the air. She visualized them simply floating on the breeze and then being hit by a massive gale force wind and scattered. Then she pictured the current time, where she was, who she was talking to, everything she’d seen and knew about the Order, and did the same thing. She threw the knowledge and images into the air. She allowed her mind to dwell on Thadrick, the current history keeper, and pictured all of those images swirling in a tornado, headed straight for him.
Everything from henceforth shall not be as it seems or as it once was. You shall not know the past from present, nor present from future. Until my will straightens the timeline, your mind shall shift like shadows and flicker like flames.
The words filled her mind unbidden. They were Lyra’s words, but she just knew they were what had to be said. Myanin felt the power flow out of her.It worked.Thad wouldn’t be recording history, at least not as it wasactuallyoccurring. Part of her wanted to laugh because she knew he was going to figure out what was happening. He’d no doubt already received the history of her crime and more. But now? Now he would get nothing but chaos. She was going to have to eat some more cotton candy to celebrate her newfound ability.
She opened her eyes and told the males what she’d discovered from the record, but not about her ability to alter history. That little tidbit was only for her.
“The male who gave the order was Vasile Lupei.” She was realizing something else interesting about the power she’d gained from Lyra. Whatever memories she accessed, she knew immediately who was in them, despite the fact that she might never have met them before. History keeper secret number 02. Jumble power was 01.
“We could use that strategy against them,” Sincaro suggested. “We have the numbers.”
“You will have to draw them away from the stronghold. And even then, it will be difficult to remain concealed if we manage to get behind them, between them and their Keep,” Alston said.
“Or we could go up,” Ludcarab said. “Above them but not visible to them.”
“We have to attack at night, so the cover of darkness would be easy,” Sincaro said.
The elf king nodded. “But we will aid the night with more darkness.” He glanced at Alston.“Are you prepared to do it?”
The high fae glared at Ludcarab, his lips thinned tightly across his severe face. “I’ve used blood magic before.”
“And the fae who’ve followed you here? Will they use blood magic?”
Myanin could hear the challenge in the elf king’s tone. It was a miracle that the two supernaturals hadn’t killed each other yet, or at least tried.
