I wrapped my now free hands around my body and turned down, sniffling slightly.
“Jaden, relax. I was just messing around.” He shrugged defensively.
Jaden moved forward. “You ever treat her like that again and I’ll make sure you’re thrown out of here for good.”
I eyed the ground harder.
Holdan seemed surprised, but duly intimidated.
“Get out of here,” said Jaden, moving closer to me.
The silver disappeared a second later, then I heard footsteps walking away, and a door close. I didn’t feel brave enough to look up until Jaden reached for the hand Holdan had been gripping.
“You okay?”
I immediately turned back down. “Yeah. I’m-I’m fine . . . he really didn’t do anything.” I tried to hold my breath as his skin touched mine.
“Maybe . . .” he pulled the hand out closer to him, till he was holding it between his own. “But the last thing you need right now is someone bullying you.”
His eyes were down. He traced the tips of my fingers gently with one of his.
My breath quivered. It had to be one of the best things I’d ever felt. My other arm tightened helplessly against my stomach.
“Don’t . . . ,” I gasped. Too quiet.
“What?” He didn’t hear me.
He’d paused in his stroking to ask it. I pulled my hand away then, tucking a hair back as cover for the removal.
I could still sense his reaction.
“Is everyone doing okay inside?” I asked. It came out quite affectedly.
His chest fell once, then he nodded slightly. “Yeah. They’re all doing okay. . . .”
“How did it happen?” I put a hand up to my collar bone, trying to still my trembling body.
His head shook then he looked over into the woods. “They were going from their track to the gate, not even a regular route, and the Meoden ambushed them.”
His tone was dismal . . . I couldn’t help but look over to check his face.
I don’t know whether he was already looking at me or if his gaze moved just in time to catch my own, but as soon as soon as our eyes met I had to look away. His stare was so deep and unclouded, everything I wanted to, needed to . . .
“When will you be leaving again?” I asked, forcing myself into reality. The wind blew up around us.
He paused for a long moment, then sighed. “I came to get Holdan so we could go. We’re leaving now.” He said it rigidly.
My eyes closed, heart dropping. Still I turned my head over happily anyways.
“That’s good,” I smiled. “I hope you guys get caught up with everything.”
His expression was dark and cold, too much for me. I sniffled again, then turned around to head inside.
I only saw him once before they left, and it was only across the room. I was okay though, re-concentrating my thoughts on what I could do for the wounded men. Now that the artisans had gone through everyone, I doubted they were in much pain, but their exhaustion was beyond apparent. I planned to spend the night downstairs with them in case they needed anything, but before I could sleep I had to check on Tanis. Now that the only conscious defense artisan had gone, the idea hit me that maybe he could have taken a look at Tanis . . . then again I remember Ikovos telling me once that they weren’t able to cure common sicknesses.
When I reached the study he was still lying down and hardly moving. I stroked him for a while, tried to get him to eat, then dropped my head in my hands sighing heavily.
“Ugh! What can I do? I’m completely useless!”
Jaden and Ikovos were both gone again. All the others were out fighting too. We were losing territory by the day. Now patrols were being attacked. And all without a single word of a victory.
I fingered a bowl on the table.
How long before they attack us here? And I can’t even use magic.
With a grunt I knocked it across the room.
What am I doing?!
The bowl rolled across the floor, settling finally with a resounding tap.
I looked over at it, past the coffee table. Then my eyes caught something, attention perking. The book. The silver book with the stories of the Meoden and the Gaeln, it was sitting out -untouched for days now.
“But Ikovos said . . .” My eyes fell. Then I narrowed. “Ah, to heck with Ikovos, I have to do something.” A small voice inside me said that that book would tell me how.
I jumped up immediately, snatching it as I left the room. When I’d gotten back downstairs I checked around to make sure everyone was still doing well. There was plenty of pace for them, about eighteen in all. Trevor, Nate, and Lucas had stayed too. They were grouped together over in the corner. The candles that lit the space were sparring, I blew out a few more as I stepped through, then grabbed the last to take by an empty mattress on the floor against the far wall.
Glancing about the silent room once more, I slid down and opened up the glowing book. At first I started off where I’d ended before, but I quickly began to skim through more intently, searching for specific subjects. Before long I was once again completely absorbed within the world it held . . . I barely slept at all that night.
By the time I saw Ikovos the next day, I’d made it through a substantial chunk of it. Enough to convince me that it was worth bringing up to him again.
“. . . And if says that that’s where the people would go to find them. It’s just that . . .”
I stopped in my fervent explanation of a part of the book in time to see Ikovos’s head fall over to one side. He was laying in one of the beds in the laundry room, or rather the sickbay as it were.
Being that he was the most advanced defense artisan, he’d arrived at the lodge this morning to help with the injuries. I was glad for it too because his group had gone on without him, which meant that he was going to be staying here for at least two days. Once he’d finished with the boys and caught me up on all that was happening outside, he went to rest on a bed. That’s when I’d followed him to show my book . . .
And now he’s falling asleep.
“Ikovos,” I complained, “are you listening to a word of this?”
He peeked one eye open with the slightest smirk in his eyes. “You were talking about the cream guys again, right?”
“Oh, whatever, you’re no help,” I said, furrowing my brow then turning my back against the bed.
I opened the book back up to study further. After a second rolled off the mattress to sit beside me on the floor.
“Alright,” he said, more alertly. “Tell me again from the beginning. I promise I’ll listen this time.”
I smiled brightly then closed the book. “Okay, it’s too big to tell you everything, but the important part is—”“
“May I?” he reached out a hand towards the book..
“Oh, sure.” I passed it to him, then he started scanning through it. “Anyways, the part I wanted to tell you about is when it mentions the Meoden’s rise in power.”
He looked over to me, one brow lifted. I nodded.
“It happens at different points throughout the book. Things will be going well enough, balanced at least, between the good and the bad. Then, for whatever reason, different reasons, out of nowhere they’ll gain too much control. That‘s when things start to go south . . . usually.”
“And you think that’s what’s happening now?” he asked. He was looking at it again, flipping through the pages, checking the first and last.
I stayed quiet. Answer enough.
He darkened, but quickly rearranged his features till they held a much easier expression.
“Alright,” he drawled, “so we got attacked a few times. But, Evelyn, come on, some lost outposts and a dozen injured hardly amount to what you’re talking about.” He flipped the book shut, turning back down.
“I’m not stupid, Ikovos.”
His face frowned oddly, eyes shifting to me.
A group of boys walked past us, then I whispered softly, gaze still ahead.
>
“I know there are things going on that you don’t tell me about.”
He clenched his jaw and leaned towards me.
“I don’t have to know what it is.” I interrupted with a gaze. “. . . I just don’t want you to keep acting like everything’s okay.”
He darkened further, almost pityingly, as I turned back ahead.
There was a long pause.
“You said usually.”
“What?” My head turned.
“Usually things go south when the Meoden gain power,” he repeated. Then passed the book back to me. “Is there another option?”
I warmed at his at least attempt of interest.
“That’s what I was telling you before—” I nodded to the tome “—when the humans go to find the Gaeln. . . . If they do, and they are found worthy, deemed to have a righteous cause, the Gaeln will help them.”
He narrowed. “How so?”
I shrugged. “Fighting usually. Remember I told you before that they’re protectors? Well, supposedly they—. . .” I stopped mid-sentence, eyes widening in recollection.
“Evelyn?” checked Ikovos, brows lifted dubiously.
“The painting!” I jerked up, then turned to him. “I can’t believe I forgot about it.”
He looked confused.
“The Gaeln, when they come to help, they fight with the humans, with artisans.” I jumped onto my feet.
He looked at me derisively. “Okay . . . I still don’t get why you’re—”
“Will you come with me?” I asked suddenly, looking down at him and biting into my lip.
Hs blue eyes were scrunched at me like I’d gone loony, but he glanced around the room and leaned up anyways.
“Ah . . . yeah.”
I smiled at him, then grabbed and pulled his hands up to lead him up to the study. When we passed by it he pointed back hesitantly.
“That was—”
“I know.”
He pursed his lips.
I marched on past the doors, stopping when I’d counted down to the one with the burn mark, the one that I’d seen the painting in all those nights ago.
“Evelyn, what’s making you so determined about this stuff?” he asked, grabbing my hand before I could reach the knob. “I mean, it’s a book, and it could be true, but . . .” He looked more interested than skeptical.
I thought about the question. It was a good one, why was I so sure that there was something to this? And how could I possible think that I might know the answer that could help everyone? . . .
“I don’t know,” I got out, head shaking. “I just have a feeling.”
He gave me an odd look then, something I couldn’t read, but it made me feel anxious.
When he released my hand I opened the door carefully. Dust burst up into the air around us. The whole room was like that. It must have just been too dark to see it that first night . . . not that it was really much lighter now.
I coughed once, then we both started into the darkness.
He gestured to my hand after a second.
“Ah, no,” I answered. “You do it.” I’m not too capable of the whole magic thing right now.
I left this part out.
He perplexed once, then put his hand out ahead, lighting the room instantly in a vibrant blue. I followed him as he stepped out in front.
“What is this? Storage?”
I shrugged. “I don’t really know, I just wondered in here once.”
“Snooping?” He guessed, eyeing me.
I winced innocently, but then I saw the backside of the canvas. It was lying just where I’d left it.
I hurried over, dropping down. As I picked up the edge, Ikovos leaned in beside me, bending onto his feet. The blue off his hand lit the rectangular sheet clearly, much better than the small torch I’d used last time.
Taken in at once it was rather jaw-dropping, though literally, just as I remembered. Meoden on the left, in the dark . . . crawling over rocks and jagged ice peaks. Then, on the other side, a myriad of white creatures, and humans holding colored swords or glowing orbs of fire. Clouds stretched across the top of the painting: light on the left side, then growing darker to the right, the middle held a clashing swirl of both.
I shook my head at it, finally comprehending the whole scene.
“Artisans, see?” I pointed to one of the cream creatures. It held a large golden sword. “And they’re the Gaeln.”
Ikovos studied it tentatively. I could see I was at least starting to get him to consider the possibility.
“Where do these paintings come from? Do you know?”
His head shook, glowing hand moving across it.
Great, this was my only lead. If Ikovos doesn’t know then who- . . .
“Do you know where Master Thoran is, Ikovos?”
“I think he’s here at the lodge for the night.” He answered it absently. Then suddenly his features darkened and he turned to look at me. “Why?”
I bit my lip, looking across the painting.
I don’t know quite yet.
I stood up my feet.
He matched me. “Evelyn, what are you thinking?”
“You can’t deny that this is more than coincidental,” I said, finally meeting his gaze and pointing down at the piece.
He regarded it, then narrowed at me.
“I’m just going to ask him what he knows, where this came from.” His expression was severe, too severe. “Ikovos . . . it’s just Thoran.”
I shook my head not understanding and he moved closer.
“I keep getting the feeling that . . .” the mist off his hand grazed my arm, sending a chill shudder down it “. . . Promise me that you wouldn’t go anywhere without telling me.”
My head shook again. “Why would I—”
“Just promise,” he repeated.
Silence and locked eyes.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I won’t. I promise.”
He lightened just slightly, then we both walked out of the room and past the study. From there we separated. He was going to his room to get some much deserved sleep.
I headed off determinedly to look for Thoran.
*
I checked in all the places I possibly thought he could be. The cafeteria, his room, that council chamber place that still gave me the creeps, the sickbay . . .
I didn’t find him anywhere. And the worst part was that every time I headed somewhere new, I had to go back to the cafeteria first to discern the proper route.
I folded up the map Sophie had made me, slipping it back into my packet. I wish it had more than Jaden and Ikovos’s rooms on there . . . I’ll never learn my way around this place.
Finally I thought of the machine room in the basement, where Jaden had taken me before the meeting in the other dimension. I couldn’t believe when I actually found the right staircase. I didn’t like going down it alone though . . . a fact I knew had nothing to do with being afraid of the dark. When I reached the wood slatted door at the bottom I could already hear the mechanisms running on the other side. After taking a brave, breath I pushed through carefully.
It wasn’t what I expected to see, though I suppose it was close to how it was the last time I was here. Working machinery and radiant lights were no shock, there were just a lot of men too. Over the past few days I’d felt so separated from all that was happening, and here a bunch of the Masters were right below me. I bet it had to do with the portal access. . . .
Someone rushed past me through the doorway and I was forced to move in. I felt awkward, but it seemed they were all too busy to notice me, or rather care that I was even in here. Off-hand I didn’t see Thoran, but I kept ahead a bit further just to be sure. Eventually, my chest fell. The only possibilities were some doors off the main room and I didn’t think I’d get away with checking them.
Before I could force myself to give up and leave, my attention was drawn by a large map hanging on the left wall beside the door I’d just come through. I’d seen a similar one in t
he library. It included the lodge, Sharadeen, Tiver, and more of the land for miles around. It also showed the order’s territory in the Meoden realm, with every gateway between the two marked.
The only difference between this map and the one in the study were colored pins stabbed into different outposts and portal gates. Red and blue. I studied for a moment . . . My jaw tightened when I realized that the red signified the spaces the Meoden had taken over. The Masters had been leaving out even more than I had guessed. Barely a handful of posts left within the other dimension.
“Well,” came a voice beside me. Thoran. He had a notebook in his hand and he was walking closer, “It’s good to know the security of our plans is kept tight.”
He eyed a few of the nearby men who’d been ignoring me, then turned his gaze to the map. I darkened, following it.
“It’s gotten bad, huh?”
There was a long short pause.
“You certainly have a way of finding out information you’re not supposed to,” he finally said.
I pursed, then shook my head, turning fully to him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t come for that. I came because . . .” I checked around “. . . I want to ask you about something.”
He took a breath, obviously noticing my accentuated caution of the others, then nodded to our right. “Follow me.”
I did as he said, walking beneath some very strange contraptions. We ended up in a room off the main area. It was fairly plain, a lone desk in the back, it looked almost like a business office. The front had a chair with a couch across from it. He gestured for me to pick one. I chose the chair, he took a seat opposite. No go sign from him . . . I guess he was just waiting.
“Right,” I said, folding my hands together. Where to start, where to start . . . Book? Gaeln? No, painting. “Thoran, you know the storage rooms down the halls, the ones near Cornelius’s study?”
I hardly think that’s what he was expecting. He lifted his brows. “There’s quite a few around there, yes.”
I fidgeted my fingers, already beginning to shrink under his gaze. “Do you know where that stuff comes from?”
“Almost all of the items come from different places . . . some were here even before I was.” His eyes zoomed in. “Is there something in particular you’re referring to?”
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