“Have you seen or heard of them since?” Fay asked, hands flying to the utility belt at her waist as she conjured a thick journal and charcoal pencil, ignoring the comment about my artifact. It was no matter, she could do whatever she wanted with it—destroy it, save it, study it.
My immortality no longer mattered to me.
Faylinn flipped to a half-blank page as she began to hastily scribble in the margins.
I nodded once. “I have.” My throat and tongue burned with the admission, eyes flicking to Holt’s necklace dangling on our child’s throat. “But do not ask me to speak of anything more. It could, in all honesty, kill me.”
Fay’s pencil ceased its scratching, her wide eyes meeting mine briefly before she focused on her writing once more.
“Then that’s why he needed me to go to the Valley. But what else is there?” she mused, no longer speaking to me.
“You’re going there?” I asked, concern evident in my tone. Last I heard, nothing remained of Solace’s previous home. It was burned beyond recognition, a soulless graveyard full of secrets. Secrets that my daughter apparently wanted to uncover.
Fay nodded. “And I’m bringing Ellowyn.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Ellowyn
The door to mine and Torin’s suite banged against the stone wall, the loud reverberation causing me to jump and instantly reach for my magic. Pain pooled in one shaking palm while Destruction snaked down the arm of the other, both powers twining together into a lethal cocktail.
“Ellowyn!” a happy female voice called, instantly quieting my racing mind and soothing the itch to destroy.
I shook my head in disbelief at the woman who stood relaxed in the doorway, a massive grin on her face.
“Fay?” I asked, dropping the hold on my magic immediately. “What are you doing here?!” I exclaimed, running to my friend with my arms open.
My heart thumped faster for an entirely different reason than my previous adrenaline spike; it had been nearly seven months since I’d last seen my friend, and even that reunion was short-lived.
Fay fell easily into my embrace, both of us clinging a little bit tighter than normal.
“Why are you here?” I asked as we pulled apart, the same love and excitement shining in Fay’s eyes that I knew was reflected in my own.
“I’m here to break you out of this stone prison,” Fay said with a mischievous waggle of her eyebrows.
My own raised toward my forehead at her confession.
“Is that so?”
Fay shrugged her shoulders with a glint in her eyes that told me there were books or ancient information involved in her future trek.
“Can we sit and catch up first?” she asked, nodding toward the twin chairs that flanked the lit fireplace. The weather was slow to warm in the north; a constant biting wind blew from the Far North and across the Narrow Sea that separated the two parts of Elyria. Alvor—the capital of Deucena—was on the northernmost tip of Elyria. After growing accustomed to the definitive seasons in the middle part of Elyria, I was growing tired of the near-constant chill. As such, Torin ensured our fireplace was always lit and, every so often, a new blanket or two would appear on the bed or laid across an armchair.
A small, fond smile played on my lips as I thought about my husband. He was off somewhere with Talamh today, and it was one of the very first days in a long,longtime that I had completely free.
I didn’t even know what to do with myself or the time that was suddenly thrust into my lap.
Thank the gods Fay appeared.
“Gods, it’s cold here,” Fay swore as she plopped heavily into one of the chairs, instantly kicking her boots off and tucking her feet beneath her body before pulling a thick woolen blanket from the basket on the floor and covering herself until just her head was showing.
I threw my head back and laughed, sudden happiness warming me through.
“So, tell me of Vespera. Of Rohak,” I said, flinging myself down into the opposite chair, feeling lighter and younger than I had in ages. A second blanket covered my body as I rested my chin on my hand and leaned closer to my friend.
Faylinn rolled her eyes as her cheeks darkened, though she tried to hide her reaction from me.
“Ooh, there’s a story there. Have you . . . completed the Bond yet?” I asked with a lascivious waggle of my eyebrows.
