“Ash.”
Cynes raised a brow. “Um, who’s Ash?”
“His Foraltae,” Eiravel explained.
“Yeah. Sure. That’s all well and good, but there is no one here.”
Eiravel rolled his eyes and looked at the empty space before them. “Can you show him?”
Ash closed her eyes for a moment.
“Well, fuck.” Cynes’s eyes went wide.
Heath blasted him with shadow. “You will not be fucking anything.”
Cynes blinked, peering up at Heath from the ground. “Did you just hit me?”
“Want another one?”
“Eiravel, he just hit me.”
“Yes, I saw.”
“You think you know a man.” Cynes shook his head.
Opening her eyes, Ash released her temporary visibility to the others. “The bog is dangerous. Be careful.”
Heath had to remind himself this was not time for a dreamspace as he checked his blades before setting as steady jog away from their starting point. The twins moved quickly to match his pace as Ash hovered next to him, floating over the black grass, her white dress floating around her legs.
“You control the sea?” Heath gave her a sidelong glance.
“To a point. I cannot make an entire ocean lift at my hands, but I can use the salt and water in the air, or even call some of the sea to me. It helps for protection and gives me some measure of healing.”
Heath thought it was more. The very life of the sea lived within her, staining her magic and scent with ocean breeze.
“How long have you been here?”
“So many years. I thought … I thought I could trust her. She offered me a hand when I most needed it, and I took it. I wish I had not.”
“Dude, he’s talking to air, brother. Fucking air.”
“Shut up, Cynes. It was much easier when you were marking the map.”
“I mean, I know she’s there, but it’s weird as fuck. You have to admit.”
“Quiet.”
Ash looked over her shoulder at the Unseelie following Heath. “They are your men?”
“Yes. We’re bonded together. Eiravel is the red-eyed one. Cynes is the asshole no one likes to talk to.”
“‘Asshole’? What is that?”
“Uh…” How exactly was he supposed to answer that? He noticed how Ash spoke in an odd manner, but he didn’t think it meant she didn’t understand what he was saying as much as she didn’t get common speaking.
The thought broke his heart.
How long must someone be trapped, lost to the outside world, that it could pass them by? She wouldn’t know how to use a spell phone or know what tv was. It was the sort of thing many took for granted.
