I nodded. “He didn’t take your disappearance lying down. I think he’d like to see his son one last time before you sacrifice yourself to rid the world of an evil like Feodore Vylan.” I chewed my lip as my plan changed. “But maybe you can help us both. Ihave a plan, and I can’t tell you what it is. But I need you to make a real problem at the gates. I need you to drag the guards up from the lower levels of the Hall of Ebrus.”
Malak frowned, looking around in the darkness, like Vox or Hayle or Lierick was going to suddenly appear. “Where are your men?”
Shaking my head, I pretended my heart wasn’t breaking. “They can’t come for this mission. Will you do it?”
He nodded. “I owe you my life.”
“The only thing I want from your life is for it to be long and happy, but let’s cause a little chaos first, okay?”
I explained what I needed from him, and by the time I slipped between the bars of the sewerage tunnels, I had to wonder if the Goddess hadn’t put him here, at this place, at this time, for a reason. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who had a bigger plan.
Twenty-Five
Hayle
Panic slipped into my sleeping mind seconds before my door slammed open and Zier Tarrin stood there, looking pale. “Is she here?”
I sat up in bed, looking around. “Who?”
But I knew. She was missing. I could feel it in my chest.
“Check the other rooms,” I shouted at Zier, as I flew out of bed, calling for Braxus and Alucius. They were at my feet in seconds. “Avalon is gone. See if she’s still in the hall. Hurry.” I had a bad, bad feeling.
Vox appeared in my doorway, looking dishevelled, Lierick behind him. “She’s gone?” he asked, and I nodded.
“I can tell, here.” I tapped my chest. “She’s not close by.”
Zier reappeared, looking panicked. Vox wrapped him in air and threw him up against the wall. “What the fuck did you do?” he growled, and Zier grunted back.
“Nothing! I told her that I couldn’t be part of whatever this is, and she asked me to take her to bed for just one night. I don’t know if she was trying to get me out of her system, or if she just wanted one night of normalcy, or… I don’t know! I would never,everhurt her.”
I believed him, but something had obviously happened. Vox, he was a little less trusting. He held Zier up there as he looked at me. “She seemed all right last night, right? Normal at dinner?”
I nodded. She’d been perfect, as always.
Lierick frowned and walked over to my desk. Opening the drawer, he removed Ivan Vylan’s journal, the book ontalsandA Future History of Ebrus.Lierick flicked openA Future History,flicking to the back. His face went pale, then green, as he read, his eyes bouncing frantically across the page. He snapped it shut. “She’s gone to destroy thetalof Ebretha herself. The last time went… badly.”
“Badly how?” I demanded, already pulling on my sword. We were going to get her back,right fucking now.
He let out a shaky breath and buried his head in his hands. “I was overtaken by the power. I refused to destroy it. Stanlus appeared, almost killed her before I could release the statue, and then Stanlus shot me in the face.”
I cursed. Vox let out a growl, dropping Zier back to the ground. The guy glared at Vox, but he was shaking his head. “I knew it would be a problem. That level of power is addictive.”
“Where the fuck were we?” I asked Lierick, and he shrugged helplessly.
“At the Conclave. TheFuture Historyonly documents the things she sees and knows. We didn’t have time to… reconnect, before she reset.”
It didn’t make sense, but I’d worry about that later. First, I had to go to Fortaare. I was going to get my Soul Tie back, and then I was going to seal our bond so I could talk inside her head.
I hadn’t told her about the sealing of our bond. I’d wanted it to be done not as a last-ditch effort to maintain a connection, but in a moment of happiness, of joy, of celebration without worry. Once again, my insistence that I knew best had endangered Avie’s life.
Barking an order at the first guard I saw to get my father, I sprinted down to Lucio’s room. I didn’t knock, but maybe I should have. In the center of Lucio’s bed was the girl from the Twelfth, Acacia, and without a word of a lie, on her left was Shay Vylan.
I opened, closed, and reopened my mouth again. “Avalon is gone.”
Acacia sat up in bed, seemingly uncaring her tits were out. “Gone where?”
Lucio growled, and I looked up at the ceiling. “Fortaare. She’s gone to do something heroic, and doesn’t trust us enough to have her back.”
