Cain smiled a Mona Lisa sort of smile and nodded. “So you’re worried about Mercury because someone told you that you should be?”
“No, I’m worried about him because he still seems so confused, and it seems like he should be more healed now.”
“Hmm.” Cain made the noise completely noncommittal before picking up his tea and taking a sip. “Well, who knows how long he was actually in that tower?”
“I understand that.” Talon didn’t mean to shrug that off, but he supposed he did, and Cain immediately slapped him down for it.
“Think of your brother, think how short a time relatively in a dragon’s life he was in prison and what harm that did to him.”
“I want him healed. I want him to be happy. It pains my soul that he is hurting in some way.”
Mercury had been isolated at that outpost for goodness knew how long. Out in the middle of nowhere with no entertainment, no company. “Do you know how long he was there?”
Cain nodded to him. “I have an idea, yes.”
“Do you know why he was out there?” That seemed to be a more important question really, the one that ate at Talon. Why would anyone leave someone like that?
Cain searched his gaze and sat his tea cup down. “I was contacted by a seer of Mercury’s keep. It’s very small, very isolated. She had been under the understanding that Mercury was gone, had run off with his lover. She didn’t inform me that he was a sekiine, or a slider, only that he had been put in danger.”
“What does that even mean? Please just tell me.” He stared at Cain, bristling with frustration. “I’m not smart. I’m not fancy. I’m just a guardian, just a warrior, and I want to protect my hailee and love him. Simple as that.” He needed to help, to support his mate, dammit. “What was going on at that tower, Cain?”
The seer shrugged, his expressive eyes going dark and stormy, and the tea sloshed in his cup like waves on a choppy ocean. “I don’t know exactly. I do know that the woman who contacted me honestly believed he was gone with his lover. It wasn’t until she found the lover’s body long dead in the keep that she knew to find Mercury. By the time she found Mercury, his stone was gone.”
“Wait, what?” He blinked, then carefully put the china teacup down as he began to pace. “The braaken was dead? What happened to him? What’s going on?”
“He was. His body was found in a make-shift grave, his head bashed in.”
“Does Mercury know?”
Cain held his hands out and open. “I have no idea. As far as Mercury himself is concerned, you know much more than I do.”
Talon wasn’t sure about that. Hell, he wasn’t sure Mercury knew much about his past right now.
“Why was Mercury left out there?” That was the question no one had effectively answered for him, and it was pissing him off.
“The seer for that keep—she is elderly; she couldn’t fly out to rescue him. You saw how challenging that area was.”
“That’s not what I’m asking!” Talon’s head throbbed, and he could feel Mercury’s concern poking at him. “You’re a seer. Why did they do this?”
“I have a theory or two, Talon, but no real information. What Mercury can do is the subject of a great deal of superstition and fear. It’s also considered a valuable skill. But at the same time, keeps don’t want dragons like Mercury to be able to move about freely.” Cain pursed his lips, then sighed.
“It could have been a multitude of reasons,” Cain finally finished.
Talon wanted to roar because he was so damn frustrated. “I need to know. Where is this seer?”
“Dead.” The word fell in between them like a lead weight.
“What?”
“She’s dead. At least as far as I know. They held her funeral, burned her on a pyre. The last thing she did was to rescue Mercury; she called me to save him.”
Talon was going to eat something, gnaw on a bar of metal. He was going to chew through a pile of glass in sheer frustration.
He did let a roar out, even though it was probably terribly inappropriate to do so with the seer. He simply couldn’t help it. He was so damnably angry.
Suddenly there was a commotion in the antechamber, and he heard Betty squawk.
Then the door blew open, and Mercury stood there, his quicksilver eyes shining, searching for Talon. “What’s the matter? What are you doing to my mate? That’s my braaken. You can’t hurt him.”
