Kallan looked over at him, shaking his head, and even Lennox was cautiously watching him, likely wondering what was going to happen. He could see it on both the men's faces. The only one who showed no response was Teague.
Carlo could be grateful for that.
There wouldn't be anybody there to make fun of him for what he was going through.
Nanshe shrugged and looked over at him. "Couldn't exactly do what I did the last time to get you through this."
Carlo laughed. "Well, I can't exactly argue with that. It would have been nice. But I can't do that."
Lennox cleared his throat. "For now, at least we can focus on getting Asherah back. What, exactly, is going on with her?"
Carlo didn't know the answer to that question either, so he took stock of where he was and what was going on around him. The muted area was still just shades of blacks and grays, and he couldn't quite make it out. How the Fae could look at this place as being more beautiful than the human world made him wonder how drab and dreary Encantado must have looked to them.
Carlo looked to Nanshe. "Is this how the Fae world looks? Do you know?"
Nanshe shook her head but didn't say anything, not a peep. This was how Carlo knew she could not give him the answer. What he didn't know was why would it be important—what the Fae world looked like or not—but they had enough on their hands for the time being. Now was not the appropriate time to try to figure it out.
"Where are we?"
Teague looked around for a moment at Carlo’s question. "I remember this location from when I came through with Heath and the others. If I'm right, we're not too far from the Forgotten Tower."
Carlo lifted one eyebrow. "And the Forgotten Tower belongs to this Skuld you told us about."
"Yes," Kallan answered. "She does own the Forgotten Tower. It's a tall, black monstrosity, and she usually has it heavily guarded. The last time we came close, we fought a golem and those damn filthy Hollows you saw in Encantado."
"Golems," Carlo mused. "No one has seen golems in years."
Teague laughed. "Well, we saw them just recently, and she packs a mean punch with them. It took all four of us to take one down, and it still was a tough go. Let's hope she doesn't have any of those bastards protecting her right now."
Carlo couldn't deny he absolutely agreed. He would hate for Skuld to show up golems because he only had Lennox, Kallan, and Teague to fight alongside him. As powerful as Nanshe was, Carlo didn't really want to see her in battle. And even if she was, if they were faced with more than one, Carlo knew it'd be a tough fight to get through.
"Do you think she may be holding Asherah at the top of the Forgotten Tower again?"
Carlo looked to Kallan at his question. "Well, you can hope she doesn't. Because if she's in the top of that tower and Skuld has her trapped with runes, we're going to have to figure out how to get her out, since we don't have Heath with us."
Kallan groaned. "That's right. He got her out by using his blood and putting it within her, so they share that."
Carlo stopped walking. "I had a question about that before, but it wasn't the time to ask. If he gave her his blood, but he's not a vampire, where does that come from? Why would he have given her his blood, or is that something you do with blood runes?"
Teague shook his head. "It's a lot to explain, but the Unseelie Fae are different. They're sort of what vampires came from. The Unseelie Fae can feed on blood, but they don't necessarily need it. It's why they have the pale skin, and they're different from the others. Normally, they only feed from their Fate. By feeding on each other, they grow in strength. That is why he was able to give Asherah his blood. But they're much different from the vampires that need blood to survive. Let's just say, the Unseelie are at the top of the food chain."
Carlo chuckled. He couldn't deny the Fae had a great sense of pride, and it wasn't much different from the wolves’ pride. That, at least, he could get behind.
"Fine. At least that question is clear, but we need to scope further to see how we're going to get in.”
Nanshe lifted a hand sheepishly. "Well, we could just portal directly inside." She winced. "I know you don't like using the Chaos Realm, but we went through the last portal so fast you didn't get a chance to truly react to the Chaos."
Carlo’s heart shuddered. As much as he knew her words were right, he was not looking forward to going directly into the Chaos Realm again. He would rather go in there as least often as possible.
Every time the Chaos bled in, it licked over him and grabbed on as a lover would. It was like an old friend that wanted him to stay around and didn't want to see him leave. Carlo wasn't sure he wanted to know how much that friend needed to be around and what that would do to him if he got involved with it.
He shook his head at Nanshe. "For now, we'll walk. Depending on how close we are, we should be able to get there fast enough."
Kallan stood firm, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. "I'd rather we use the portal. I know Heath would want us to get to his Fate as quickly as possible. Arguing about it is only eating up time. We need to get to Asherah, and we need to get to her now."
Carlo growled at the Fae, trying to keep his fear of the Chaos at bay. He understood where the male was coming from, and if it were any other situation, he would absolutely agree and do the same thing, but he could not. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t force himself to immediately go back into the Chaos.
"Fine, Kallan, let's compromise,” Carlo replied. “We'll move ahead for a little while, scope out our targets and see what we're doing, see what we're up against before we immediately portal inside. I'd rather not get my head fucking ripped off without knowing what's happening."
