The second I was in my room, alone on the bed, I pulled out Valkaryn and placed her cold steel on my pillow.
‘Okay, what is it?’I asked.
But there was no response.
‘Are you kidding me? I just left training early. Why?’I pressed.
Nothing.
I groaned, falling backward onto the bed in frustration. This weapon was truly one of a kind. She still had yet to show any awesome power beyond the night of the banquet when she killed Mercy Solvaris for trying to take her, and some shielding during the attack on me in the middle of the night. For a weapon famed asthe King Killer, if I were being honest, I expected more. I expected to pull her out in practice and see lightning fly from the tip of her steel edge and rip through a wall or something.
‘Shh, quiet your mind, child,’she told me, and I fell silent.
Quiet my mind? For what? She tells me to leave practice early, and now this?
I took in a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, trying to focus on nothing. Which was pretty much impossible.
‘Brynn?’Kaelric’s voice was gruff, distant—weak?
My heart hammered in my chest, aching the slightest bit. I hadn’t realized until now that I’d missed him. I missed that raging furball even when he was bossing me around and trying to control everything.
‘I’m here. How’s Elia?’
There was silence for a full minute. I thought I’d lost connection with him.
‘She’s… we don’t have her back yet. We met some resistance, but I’m working on it. I will be back for the next trial. Keep training.’
‘Ask him where he is,’Valkaryn told me.
‘Where are you?’I asked him.‘Still in Grimreach?’
‘Yes. I’ll see you soon. Work on your bond with Valkaryn. She can be a great teacher if you let her.’
I sat up, standing from the bed and slipping Valkaryn into her sheath.
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’I asked her.
‘Pack a bag. We’re going after Elia,’she declared, and I grinned.
That’s exactly what I had in mind.
Kaelric Morvain would regret the day he called me weak.
I left a note on the bed so that Cassian wouldn’t worry. I told him I was meeting up with Kaelric and would be back for the next trial. Within the hour, I had snuck onto a train headed for Fenmyr. Grimreach was the first stop, at the very edge of the Fenmyr border touching Aerlyn. With my luck, I’d reach just before morning.
I leaned my back against the rocking car as night fell. Stacks of grain sacks were piled up all around me. I knew we traded regularly with Fenmyr, their lands being more fertile for fruits and vegetables, and ours really only being good for grains and meat production.
‘Can you see the future?’I asked Val.
The nickname seemed appropriate; she would tell me if she minded.
‘I cannot.’
Hmm.
‘Then how did you know Kaelric was going to contact me? You told me to go to the room and quiet my mind.’
‘Because, like you and I have a bond, I also have a small bond with Kaelric through you. It’s very faint, but it’s there. I could sense him reaching out to you. He’d been trying a while.’
