Page 15 of A Kingdom of Monsters

I ground my teeth. Not that Scion could know it, but I hadn’t been able to see much of anything since we’d left Underneath. It was clear to me what the problem was: Like almost all seers, I couldn’t see any visions of my own future. I couldn’t see Lonnie either, for entirely different reasons, and what little I could see of my brother’s future was always hazy. Scion was prone to second-guessing everything. That quality allowed him to seal his mating bond with Lonnie without risking death, but it also made it nearly impossible to get a clear vision of his future. Of the people within the castle who mattered, only Bael made a good subject for prophecy. Unfortunately, he’d spent the better part of the last several weeks sleeping. All that combined to build a brick wall in my mind. I couldn’t see through it, and if I tried to peer around it I could find no edge to the wall.

I could only conclude that I’d be spending the foreseeable future with Lonnie and Scion, at the very least. A large part of me was glad of that, but it still left me nearly powerless.

The person on the other side of the door knocked again, and I jumped. I’d nearly forgotten about them. Hastily, I swung the door open, and found myself nearly nose to nose with Idris. I took a step back. “Hello.”

“I could hear you all shouting down the hall,” the other male said by way of greeting. “Thought you might like some help.”

I furrowed my brow in slight annoyance, but stepped aside to let him into the room. “We’re fine,” I said flatly. “You really don’t?—”

I broke off as Idris shouldered past me and into the room. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

There was nothing specifically wrong with Idris, per se. I’d spoken to him when he first boarded my ship after Underneath, and I knew he was being truthful when he said he didn’t remember exactly how he’d ended up in the palace dungeons. He also had no ill will toward any of us, and didn’t intend to harm Lonnie–always my first priority. Still, there was something…odd about the man. Something that I didn’t think had anything to do with his being from another millennia.

“What are you looking for?” Idris asked conversationally.

Scion looked up from his book and glared at the male. “Why the fuck does it matter to you?”

I stifled a grin. For once, I wholeheartedly agreed with my brother, though I might have said so more tactfully.

To his credit, Idris took Scion’s mood in stride. “It doesn’t,” he replied easily. “But there’s not much else for me to do, is there? You all freed me, I may as well try to be useful.”

Bael sat up, cocking his head appraisingly at Idris. “You said you were born seven thousand years ago?”

Idris nodded with a weak smile. “Something like that.”

“Well, that would have been the time of Aisling, wouldn’t it?”

I went stiff waiting for Idris to reply.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time it had occurred to me that seven thousand years was almost exactly the time since the curse on our family was originally enacted. Yet, I didn’t exactly believe that Idris was really so old. I believed he thought he was, but then, years–even months–of confinement could easily drive a male insane. It was far more believable that he had lost track of time than that he was truly as old as the legendary queen Aisling.

Before Idris could even open his mouth to reply, the shrill call of a raven pierced the air. We all instinctively turned to face the doorway as, in a flurry of black feathers and sharp talons, Scion's pet raven burst into the room. It swooped low over our heads, landing on his master's shoulder with another urgent screech.

My stomach sank.

I didn't have to understand the bird to know something was wrong. It had been watching Lonnie, and if the bird was here…where was she?

I randown the stairs toward the dungeon. Bael had taken the lead and sprinted several paces ahead of me, while Scion took up the rear, seeming to be trying to get more information out of his bird. Whether he could actually talk to the thing, I had no idea, but for once I hoped so.

“We shouldn’t have let her go alone,” I grumbled to no one in particular. “Rhiannon is more dangerous than she looks, and she’s already tried to kill Lonnie once.”

“Why do you care?” Scion barked. “She’s not your concern.”

I opened my mouth to retort, and closed it again.

In a way, he was right. For now, Lonnie really wasn’t my concern. And unless I was honest with her, she never would be.

Still, I couldn’t keep myself from rushing downstairs with the others to make sure she was safe. I consoled myself with the knowledge that Idris was running along with us, and he certainlyhad no claim to Lonnie, nor a reason to care aside from general curiosity.

We burst through a round wooden door at the bottom of the stairs and into the hallway which housed the entrance to the dungeons. I turned my head, frantically searching for some sort of danger, only to come crashing to a halt.

Lonnie herself sprinted toward us, running away from the dungeons as if there was some terrible monster chasing her.

Mingled relief and confusion hit me at once, followed by anger. She was alive, yes, but she was crying.

She reached Bael first, and threw herself into his arms, burying her face in his shoulder. He patted her head, while looking over her shoulder at me, confusion across his face.

‘What happened?’ he mouthed.

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