Page 55 of Dark Witch: Twin Destinies

He chuckled. "Ha-ha."

She took a sip and closed her eyes. "Divine, truly. If you weren't mated, I would ask you to marry me."

"What about Edgar?" Negal asked before biting into his energy bar.

Jasmine seemed unfazed by the question. "He hasn't made me Turkish coffee yet. If he comes even close to this, I'll marry him."

She didn't sound very convincing. There was no wistfulness in her tone, only humor. It was as if she was talking about a colleague, not the male she'd been sharing her bed with.

Aru finished the last of the dregs from his cup and handed it to Dagor to stow away. They weren't going to wash them for obvious reasons.

He turned to Jasmine. "As soon as you are ready, you need to whip out your scrying stick and point us in the right direction, so we can get to where Edgar is going to pick us up on time and enjoy the crappy coffee in the hotel restaurant."

Jasmine smiled. "Maybe I can read the future in the coffee grounds." She took a sip and then lifted the cup, turning it this way and that to coat the sides. After another moment, she sighed. "All I see is a long road ahead. That's not telling me much." She reached into her pocket, withdrawing the scrying stick.

Closing her eyes, she mumbled something under her breath that Aru didn't catch, her brow furrowing in concentration.

Not that it mattered what she'd said.

Jasmine's mystical methods were just tools that focused her innate abilities. She could be reciting a recipe for momos for all he cared.

Thinking about the delicious Tibetan dumplings made his mouth water, and he banished the craving by thinking about the call he had missed with the queen the previous night. She had known that he might not be able to call because of conditions in the field, but he still regretted not being able to make it.

The truth was that he enjoyed being privy to the lessons the queen gave her granddaughter and everything else they talked about. He found it fascinating and educational. The lessons she imparted to her granddaughter were a masterclass in politics and strategy, and Aru absorbed every word like a sponge. If he ever decided to pursue a political career, the knowledge he gleaned from these calls would be invaluable.

"Oh boy," Jasmine murmured as her hand holding the scrying stick started vibrating violently. The movement was so pronounced that it seemed like the stick had a life of its own.

Jasmine rotated her wrist, moving the stick in a circle. The vibrations intensified and then suddenly stopped. When she moved it again, the vibrations resumed, and when she returned to the same spot, they abruptly stopped again.

"It seems that the stick settled on a heading," she said. "It's quivering with an almost palpable energy when I point it at that lower peak over there."

The mountaintop she pointed at was less than a mile away, within range of Aru's scanner.

He pulled it out of his backpack, hoping to find a trace of energy with an Anumatian technology signature that would corroborate Jasmine's findings.

Regrettably, the only energy the device registered was human-made and emanated from the nearby military base.

If there was anything on the mountain the stick was pointing at, the scanner should have picked it up. It was probably just pointing to a path, not the actual location, although given the triangulation, it should be nearby.

Well, provided that Jasmine was onto something, they weren't wasting their time on a wild goose chase.

She wasn't faking it, that was for sure, but she could have convinced herself that she had magic, and that conviction could have influenced her energy flow, which in turn had made the stick vibrate.

42

JASMINE

Jasmine was afraid to let herself get excited about the unassuming-looking mountain that her scrying stick was adamantly pointing to.

It couldn't be that easy.

She'd expected to trek through these mountains for weeks. They all had. Could their search be over as soon as they reached that mountain?

She started walking, but Aru's hand on her shoulder stopped her. "Not so fast," he said. "I know you are eager to walk, but I need you to get into the harness."

"Why? My ankle doesn't hurt anymore. I don't know how it suddenly got better, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, right?"

She looked for any sign that he was somehow involved in her rapid healing, some flicker of amusement or guilt, but the god's expression didn't reveal a thing.

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