You banked!I accused Ti.
I’m flying! What do you expect? There will be updrafts and other factors I can’t control,he retorted.
Nerissa took cover behind a large boulder and signaled me to continue. We banked, I loosed another arrow, and… Miss.
On it went for the better part of an hour before we finally called it a day. I opened a sliver of myself to that connection that tethered me to Bayne, allowing a bit of my day to pass through it…disappointment, laughter, hope, exhaustion. Just to feel a little of him. I received the faintest of emotions in return…Longing,concern,love. He was alive, and as far as I could tell, unharmed. I held on to that thought as I prepared to fulfill my oath to the queen.
It didn’t take longto reach the rocky strip along the northern curve of the Eye of the Wood. Queen Antares had chosen a location with a spectacular view of the lake.
Heavy clouds hung overhead, amplifying the muskiness of the humid summer that approached. They cast a dark net over the mysterious body of water. I stepped to the edge of the cliff, risking a glance over the thousand-foot drop. The lake was bordered by cliffs of varying heights, making it impossible to fish or traverse. The Awakening would bring a pilgrimage of elves from all over Lotrennia to these shores to celebrate the summer solstice.
Tiberius stalked to the edge of the pine forest that spread to the sea. A soft breeze blew from the north, and the smell of pine and sea mingled in the air for the briefest moment. I inhaled deeply, my heart squeezing at the thought of Bayne.
“I thought you might appreciate seeing the Eye of the Wood before the festivities,” the queen crooned from behind, and I turned to face her.
Queen Antares was dressed in bone-white leggings and a vest. She wore a single, golden chain in place of her usual living crown of vines and flowers.
“The Awakening is a time of magic. A time of bounty and fertility,” she preached. “It is the one day a year Aelius is high enough in the sky to illuminate the entire surface of the lake. Miracles have been known to happen.” Her eyes narrowed as they ran along the length of the thick scar on my neck.
I waited for her to say whatever it was she wanted to say to me without the ears of the others. That was her condition. We came alone. But I wasn’t unarmed. The Obscura power wasquick to respond to my call these days. It took barely a thought before it surged forward, begging to be released.
“I don’t need to tell you,” she said, her voice taking on a charismatic lilt, “that there has been a plague upon these lands since Captain Ravindra abandoned us a century ago.”
Abandoned. Such a deliberate word.
“What did you expect him to do?” I asked, unable to keep the accusation from my voice.
Light brows tilted up as her eyes bore into me. “If he’d been honest about his gift… If his parents hadn’t hidden his powers, I never would have sentenced them. You are not a queen, Lyvia, but you are not stupid. If I’d let the seers continue their propaganda, our people would have suffered.
“Our landhassuffered with his absence,” she continued. “He had taken the essence of what is Lotrennia. The light and life of our soil, our land. His return is a blessing.”
Everything she said was true. The land had slowly started to become greener, lusher, since Bayne’s return, though it still wasn’t back to its former glory. Many elves continued to struggle.
I’d seen firsthand how Bayne’s power had evolved after the unexpected twin eclipse, theSending. How he could literally give life to the leaves and the trees. It was more than tree singing… that took hours, days even, and sometimes several mages to influence the growth of saplings. Bayne could command the essence of the life that was already there.
“I thought we were here to train,” I said, changing the subject.
Her eyes drifted between my own, as if searching for something.
“Indeed,” she said, backing away from the edge of the cliff.
My molars scraped against each other in irritation. I wasn’t here to play games with her. I took one last look at the sprawlinglake before a hard hand hit the center of my back, and I was flung into open air.
