He turned his head and gestured to somebody behind him, and then Evira came up on his other side.
She pushed into the hut and threw her arms around me. “We’ll figure this out. It will all be okay,” she breathed against my neck, as she clutched me fiercely.
She was scared. Our dragon warrior was actually scared.
There was only one way I could see that being possible.
She was scared forme.
As I stroked her hair, I looked out at Grandpa. The grave look in his eyes had my gut twisting.
“I need to remove you from campus immediately, Winter.”
“What? Why?”
Evira eased back from me.
The two of them exchanged a look, and he gave a nod.
Oh no.When there was a serious situation, Grandpa often slipped into Commander of The Shadowed mode, which came off harsh and intense. So he was having Evira, one of my loves, give me the news instead, to steady me, and comfort me, while he couldn’t currently allow that of himself when this sort of compartmentalization was required of him.
Clutching my hand, Evira told me, “You’ve been in this hut for four hours.”
I thought for a moment. Ruxnoth. When he’d released me from that dreamscape, he must have held me in stasis for a bit. No—for fucking hours according to her.
But why would—
His words slammed into me.
“You require a push. It is time for you to see unequivocally that you have no choice.”
He’d done something. And it clearly hadn’t only been afflicting me with more symptoms of being without that warmth.
“I’ve been texting, calling you,” Evira told me. “I received word from Torvek, then my dad in the Dracoryn Realm. House Athyras picked up additional information regarding the destabilization rooted in death magic that they sensed weeks ago. Word’s spread across the Realm, and it isn’t going to stay contained there. I flew back to try to discredit it, to calm everyone down, but an hour ago Ruxnoth forced a holoscreen into the center of the Dracoryn Core and revealed himself, the necromancers with him, and your supposed role in all of it. He claimed you agreed to drag Sanctus onto the mortal plane, starting with the Dracoryn Realm, then let that construct overrun it—some dark, twisted terraforming.”
“No,” I choked. “That’s not—”
“Winter,” Grandpa spoke. “Word has also reached me that Ruxnoth projected this same message at the Guardian Compound thirty minutes ago. He intends to do so with all sovereigns and leaders across the supernatural world.”
He was outing me.
He was making me seem like the severe threat so many feared I was.
Time had run out.
Grandpa stepped forward and held out his hand to me. “Come with me. We must make haste.”
“Where… where are Vax and Zayn? Do my parents know? Do—”
“Your mother is being informed as we speak. I’ve sent agents to the Dark Fae Realm where she was conducting business today. Lazriel is with your grandma and agents are on their way to them at Vyrn Hollow.”
Evira told me, “Zayn is off the grid for the next couple of hours on a Requital operation supervised by Charles Petrone.” He’d been learning intensively with Requital for the last few days since his induction.
Grandpa went on, “Your dad, father, and Vaxan are proving difficult to reach, so I’ve contacted Ambrose and he’s seeing to that. They are together currently.”
“Together?” Evira and I asked in unison.
“I believe they are working on some dangerous spellwork concerning Ruxnoth. Alongside Kai.”
