Page 30 of The Last Heir of Elsewhere

“How did you find us?” she gasped.

“I’ll always find you, little monster.”

Her cheeks flushed and she looked down. “Is everyone alright?”

“Areyoualright?” I countered, not wanting to scare her with the knowledge that the battle still raged on at the harbor. “What happened?”

She flushed, and looked down. “I’m fine. I’m?—”

“Alive,” Scion finished for her, darkly.

I slowly looked up and saw Scion lingering in the shadows behind her. He was shirtless, his skin smeared with fresh blood. Our eyes met, and we shared a silent understanding.

If he’d accepted his bond with her and was still breathing, then perhaps everything would be fine. I’d never been so happy to think I’d been wrong in my life.

I couldn’t stifle a grin, as a wave of true happiness washed over me, entirely unexpected. Then, just as quickly, my head throbbed with blinding pain, and I resisted the urge to fall at the wave of nausea that washed over me.

“Are you alright?” Lonnie asked. “You look sick.”

I swallowed the bile in my throat, and struggled to catch my breath. Looking up at her, I shook my head, and forced a smile. “I’m fine, little monster.” I lied, barely aware of the searing pain in my throat over the throbbing in my skull. “I’m just happy you’re safe.”

13

LONNIE

THE WAYWOODS

Over the next several hours, no one so much as spoke of what had just happened in the barn. In fact, Bael, Scion and I barely spoke at all, as we shadow walked across the woodland, searching for a town in which to rest.

It felt to me like the day we’d spent disappearing and reappearing all over Elsewhere, searching for a place to hide following the attack on the obsidian castle. On that day, however, we’d visited only towns which we could walk directly into, as someone within our party had been there before. Now, we were in a part of the Waywoods that neither of the princes, and certainly not I, was familiar with, and searching for a town turned out to be harder than finding a single grain of rice on a sandy river bank.

“Where are we?” I asked as we tumbled out of the dark and into yet another section of unidentifiable woodland. The gnarled trees surrounding us looked much the same as every other tree, and the underbrush picked at my ankles like every other thorn and vine, making it impossible to know where we’d landed.

Scion turned to me, and pushed his rumpled hair out of narrowed eyes. “Surely you have learned enough not to keep asking such vague questions. You know we can’t answer you.”

I scowled at him. “And surelyyou have learned to be more flexible with your interpretation. You know what I meant.”

Bael made an exasperated noise in the back of his throat. “I suppose that answers all my questions.”

I glanced sideways at him, and asked: “What questions?” at the same moment as Scion said: “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Bael shook his head. “Just that your stubbornness defies all intervention…both of you.”

Scion made a hiss of anger, but I thought there might be slightly less bite behind the sound than usual. As if he were putting on an act, rather than being truly annoyed with me.

Or, perhaps that was merely what I wanted to hear.

We hadn’t spoken a single word about what had happened in the barn, but awareness of it pulsed between the three of us, like a firework poised and ready to go off at any moment. I knew we would have to broach the subject soon, but until then, it was as if nothing had changed.

Or rather, nothing except the fact that Scion now seemed determined to stay with us…at least as far as the next town.

In the meantime, I had other, equally pressing things to worry about.

I glanced over at Bael, and narrowed my eyes, as I had every time we’d shadow walked to a new section of forest over the last hour. I could swear he seemed pale, as if he might be injured, but I couldn’t see anything wrong with him.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” I asked, losing count of how many times I’d asked already.

“I’m merely sick of wandering around, little monster,” he replied.

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