Page 75 of Forging Bonds: Part One

“Yes,”the voices shock me so severely by answering my silent question that I squeak.

The sound makes the poor woman look at me like I’m one shoe short of a pair. I don’t think that’s the saying, but at this point, I’m beyond caring and questioning fucking everything.

The woman raises her eyebrow slightly and then says, “I’m sorry to interrupt. I’ll leave you to it. I have chores that I should probably be getting on with anyway.”

I want to apologize for my weird behavior, but my mouth won’t open and I just stay staring at the painting. She obviously decides that she’s not going to wait for the weirdo that she found in the hallway to reply because she quickly leaves.

I wonder if there will be a betting pool between the people who work here now on whether I will survive or not. To be honest, there probably already is, I am after all human.

It's not the thing to be focusing on right now.

The voices are murmuring again, and back to normal, but I know that they were the ones who said yes, it was as if a lot of voices were saying the word at the same time, not a single voice, and my voices weren’t there, they weren’t murmuring.

I know that it is incredibly unlikely, but I have to know if they will reply again, and this time, give me a definitive answer. Looking either way down the hallway to check that I’m alone so I don’t appear to be even more crazy than I have already looked, I decide that it isn’t quite enough.

I whisper very quietly to the castle, “Are we alone on this floor now?”

Honestly, I have no idea if the castle works the same way that the house does, but I figure that in this situation, it’s worth a shot. The floor under my feet flares to life with the same glow that led me here, and I roll my eyes at myself. How the hell did I think that the castle was going to answer that question? It’s not like it can use words to tell me, and I didn’t exactly qualify the question by saying that it should glow if there was, so that was on me.

“Alright, let’s try this again,” I say, making sure that I am still quiet. “Light up if there is someone on this floor.” The floor stays dull. “Okay, can you buzz if someone is coming? Light up if you can.” The floor lights up, and I smile, “Thank you. Okay, let’s do this.” I take a deep breath and focus on the voices as I stare up at the painting. “Are the people in the painting in front of me, the King and Queen of Trieneliea, my parents?”

“Yes, they are,” the voices reply immediately, and then go back to their murmuring as if they haven’t just shocked the shit out of me.

“Right,” I say out loud because, quite frankly, I am at a complete loss as to how to respond otherwise.

The voices just answered me twice!

I have always referred to them as the voices, but thanks to Sully, I know that they are actually the voices of the dead, thousands of dead. I don’t specifically know the ins and outs of it; I didn’t exactly get the chance to look into it properly, so I don’t know why I’m hearing thousands of dead and where they’re from? I mean, aren’t they enjoying their afterlife?

Huh. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before now, but really that’s something that I am just going to have to add to the list of shit that I have to research when we get home.

My eyebrows rise, well actually, I guess the voices are something that I have inherited from my mother, who is the Queen of Trieneliea and a fucking angel.

That’s insane.

Holy fuck, that means I’m an angel.

I actually laugh out loud at that thought. I am by no means an angel in the traditional human sense of the word, not even vaguely close. However, I remember what she was like in the vision, she was strong and incredibly loyal to her people, she was fighting on the front lines with them. That makes me smile, and a sense of pride fills me. There are worse people to be my parents.

Holy shit, my parents.

I don’t know what to do or how to feel. Frustratingly enough, I can’t go and immediately question Pete, I’m at the Choosing, which means I have to get through the next week before I can even think about going to find him and hoping that he is still in town and will talk to me. I frown, I don’t know why he wouldn’t talk to me, but now that is definitely something that I’m worrying about.

I’ve got to tell the guys.

I start to walk away and then hesitate. My life is so weird that I really wouldn’t be surprised if, by the time I have gone and got the guys, the painting has disappeared or something. I almost face-palm myself when I realize that I have a phone on me, you know, one that can take photographs. Pulling it out, I make sure that I take several photographs of the painting just in case, and I even check them to ensure that they are in my gallery and that they aren’t blacked out or something weird.

I know that the guys would believe me regardless of whether I had photographic evidence or not, they’re going to have to when it comes to the voices confirming my suspicion, but I need them to see it for my sake. They can’t even identify Pete since they’ve never met him. Although Griff, River, and Ransom were all in the same room as him, I doubt that they paid him any attention. He was always very good at disappearing into the background.

Once I’m sure that I’ve got the pictures, I say aloud, “Okay, Castle, I know we’ve just met, but I’m already pretty fond of you. Could you please light up if you will stay here and keep an eye on the painting for me so I can bring the guys up to see it?” The stones around the painting glow, and I smile, “Thank you.”

I need to be quick, I have no idea how long I have been up here, but I’m sure that I’m nearing the hour deadline that I self-imposed, and the guys are most likely already starting to worry about where I am. Not only that, but food was mentioned, and although I’m hungry, I’m not going to be able to eat until I have shown the guys this, but I don’t want to piss off the people that work here on day one by being late to dinner.

I can’t just tell them in the common area, just in case we are being listened to and because I’m sure that the other team is most likely here by now, too, and I absolutely do not want them to know that I am the daughter of the King and Queen of Trieneliea.

I stop halfway down the stairs. That thought is kind of terrifying and not one that I’m quite ready to deal with yet, so after I have told the guys, I’m going to have to put it on the back burner until after the Choosing. Not only can I not do anything about it until I am out of the Choosing anyway, but my focus needs to be on the Choosing, you know, so I don’t die.

It would not be good to die and then come back to life in front of hundreds of thousands of supernaturals, actually more than that since it's broadcast in all of the realms. I wonder if my mom could do the same thing?

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