Page 15 of Elven Crown

Technically, she’d alreadybeenfound. Rowan was here. That would all change very soon.

Having a solution to this problem, however, didn’t alleviate her concerns about the problem existing.

How the hellhadRowan found her here, anyway? She hadn’t left any clues behind her over all these centuries. No viable trail to follow across this world while she bounced around the country every five to ten years, always finding somewhere new for herself.

Never spending more time in one place than she could afford to leave behind her when it was time to move on.

There was no possible way she hadn’t covered her tracks. She’d been so careful. She’d made sure not even a sliver of information about her could have made its way between worlds and all the way to the Bloodshadow Court.

Even rumors wouldn’t have survived the journey to Xahar’áhsh and certainly not into the hands of the Blackmoon Clan.

So how had Rowan tracked her down?

Had he been following her for much longer than he’d let on, watching her, waiting for the best time to pounce and throw her off guard?

If that were the case, whenhadhe found her? How long had he been following her? Where had she been when he’d picked up her trail? What had she been doing? What had she let slip?

Her mind reeled with all the possibilities and the exasperating unknowns as she approached the very center of the training gym.

Naturally, she would have loved to get all her answers too—to know where she’d miss-stepped somewhere along the way. But her answers weren’t the top priority.

The top priority was that she could guarantee Rowan remained the first and only person to track her down. Once she got rid of him, once she sent him back home with his tail between his legs so he could do something else with his life, she would cover her tracks much more effectively.

But she had to get rid of him first.

Among the other spell reagents inside that central casting circle sat a large iron brazier. It looked like it could have come straight from the old world through the Gateway and took up a significant portion of the circle. Its belly remained hollow and cold for now, but in a few minutes, it would blaze with magical flames.

Laid strategically around that brazier were items the other items for the initiate to use at will during their sacred challenge. Ritual dagger, candles, various reagents for spellcasting, some of them from Xahar’áhsh but most of them sourced in this world instead.

Their magic wouldn’t be as potent, but they still worked in a pinch.

Most things on Earth did.

Anything Rowan might need to aid him during his trial, all without leaving this spellbound circle, were right here.

Rebecca only needed one of them.

The small, delicate flask of clear glass was easy enough to pick out, especially with the glowing blue potion inside that would serve as the spark for Rowan’s final test. The liquid’s glow pulsed softly when Rebecca reached for the stoppered flask, but it would do nothing more to her.

This potion wasn’t for her, after all.

When she grabbed the flask and pried out the stopper, she almost dropped the thing before realizing how clammy her hands had become.

Why was she so nervous about this?

Because the elf about to enter this ceremonial challenge was a reckless, irreverent, unpredictable bastard at best, and because Rebecca wanted this to work.

No, sheneededthis to work.

And she didn’t have all night to crouch here, debating the pros and cons of the plan she’d already formed and to which she’d already committed.

Squatting beside the casting circle, she pulled a small glass vial from her jacket pocket, bit down on the stopper to remove it with her teeth, and poured the swirling black-and-mercurial-silver potion it held into the larger flask of glowing blue meant for Rowan.

The darkness of her added concoction churned with the foreboding silvery-black Rebecca would have recognized anywhere. Rowan probably would have too, come to think of it. This stuff looked like her Bloodshadow magic captured in a jar.

Technically speaking, that was exactly what this was. Just slightly modified by her own design into a new form meant to affect one other person and one person only.

She’d made this one with pieces of her own magic, delicately connecting it to and aligning it with the very specific bond she and Rowan shared. The bond that continued, even now, after centuries spent apart, whether or not she wanted to admit it.

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