Chapter 19
Abe rushed through the trees behind the others. As soon as the mage had brought down the invisible wall, or whatever it was, they had wasted no time moving. The air felt different now. It was cooler and seemed cleaner if that were possible.
“I’m not seeing any signs of magic,” Aunt Raegan’s voice came through the earpiece.
“Romulus can’t enter,” he didn’t know whose voice that was but figured it had to be the witch that Aunt Daxx had brought back, “in fact, neither can I.”
“That’s weird, Beth had no problem.” Uncle Leone moved by him quickly.
“The royal blood might be why,” Bethany answered.
“Interesting.” Victor’s voice was without emotion, as Abe had noticed it usually was.
He needed something to think about, so he didn’t do whatever the hell he had done—in front of his aunts and uncles a few minutes earlier.
“If magic users can’t go here, does that mean we’re near this circle?” Paisley was walking a few feet to Abe’s left, her hands in the air, and was looking all around them.
“I want to know why it’s a forbidden area.” Liri’s voice sent a shiver through him, which he didn’t have time for right now.
“I’ve seen too many movies about things forbidden.” His Aunt Beth stated.
“Chase, message Alona and get her and Crissy to grab all information from the library about the meeting stones. There has to be information about it.” His uncle Troy’s voice came over the com. Abe didn’t know why he hadn’t come, but he assumed it was something to do with other aspects of the big evil plot.
“I’m a bit busy,” Chase answered.
“As am I, brother. I’m in Solrelm currently trying to weed through the babble in this man’s head. We…”
“I’ll do it,” Arius interrupted, “moving the prisoners has been very uneventful so far.”
“That’s a good thing,” Paisley had a grin on her face.
“Yes, but I envy all of you, running into the unknown.”
Abe frowned, “has anyone else noticed the air is different here?”
“Yes, I’ve been attempting to ascertain if it’s in a good way or bad one.” Uncle Victor glanced around at the others. “It’s very fresh.”
“I’m here, well, not there here, but here on the phone here,” Aunt Crissy said quickly, “the meeting circle, I read the books…”
“Already, cutie?”
Crissy laughed, “No, yesterday. There were only five with information in them, I need to talk to Art and see if they have books. Do you think they do? If I had more libraries…”
“Heart, what did the books tell you about the meeting circle?” Victor’s tone was tender.
“Oh, yes, it’s a sacred space, nothing dark or tainted can enter, that’s what the one part said, there was a lot more on the history…”
“It was warded. We couldn’t get in, so someone had to do that on the outside?” Bethany sounded excited.
“Yes. If they were inside and wanted to do something bad, they couldn’t have done it because nothing dark or tainted…”
“I was cleansing crystals when I was called for,” the woman said, “that’s probably why I can’t enter. The energy was transferred to me.”
“Most likely, Clairee, because we know you’re not dark.” Bethany stopped walking and looked around, “nothing tainted. The air is pure. That’s why it feels different.”
“Does that mean there’s no one here for us to kick their ass?” Daxx stopped walking.
“Probably.” Paisley stopped walking too.
Liri rushed by Abe, “It makes so much sense now. They had to disband the realms working together because someone coming to these meetings, or more were involved, and if they had dark intentions, they would have found out…”
“Oh my gosh, she’s right. When I saw the circle of stones, I saw evil,” Crissy gasped, “it was a darkness around it, and I thought it was the circle or the stone because we have had bad times with stones before…”
“Floating rocks—don’t remind me,” Aunt Kinsley’s voice came through the call.
“Wait, you were sending us here when it could have been evil dark rocks again?” Daxx stopped and put her hands on her hips.
“I didn’t send anyone. They were flying over it,” Crissy protested, “I saw the plane crash, but that was later…”
“We need to find the stones and this circle, or whatever, and then get back to discuss this,” Uncle Chase looked at Uncle Victor, “we need to get others from each realm together and ponder this further.”
“I agree.” Victor started walking again.
Abe followed behind. He was a little disappointed that he didn’t get to fight. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to, but the inclination to beat on something was strong. He was losing his mind. That was the only thing he could think of. A head wasn’t meant to carry several lifetimes of memories in it, and it was catching up to him. Fangs popping out without warning, his eyes changing and then porting to a cabin he hadn’t really been to in fifty years. He was still shocked that he had done that. The cabin was in bad repair, so now he was going to be obligated to do some work on it. It had been the cabin they, as in his siblings and father, had gone to for a few years time after they were all together for the first time. At least it was somewhere that had good memories. Finally, finding out that he was some sort of anomaly after a year of not knowing what was happening—and the fact that he had siblings and his father was alive, had been good too. Why had he gone there? Of all the places he’d been in his long life, why there?
“You look as unimpressed as I am.”
He blinked and looked down at Aunt Daxx walking beside him.
“I wanted to kick some ass after falling from the sky.”
He smirked, “the jump didn’t stress me out.” Except for wanting to bite Liri most of the way down. He almost had to when they were lying on the ground together.
“There’s something wrong with you if you like jumping from planes.” She said with an unimpressed expression on her face.
He grinned, “the first time I had to do it, I felt a lot like you did.”
“They would have had to shoot me to get me to do it on purpose.” She nodded and then walked over to talk to Uncle Rafael.
“Are you all right?”
He jerked her head to the left to see Liri walking beside him, “I’m fine.”
“When we get back, if I’m not on lockdown by Bastian, can we talk?”
He looked down at her and had to really focus on making sure his eyes didn’t change color, “sure.” He motioned to his Uncle Victor. “I’m going to go scout ahead with my uncle.” He didn’t wait for a response from her, just quickened his pace to catch up. The overgrown cabin in the middle of nowhere sounded really good. He needed to talk to one of his uncles about his reaction to her. He hadn’t had this much trouble controlling his own body since he was sixteen.