Page 46 of Elven Throne

Everything swayed in the cool, muggy breeze of mid-fall. Crickets still chirping the last stanzas of their nighttime songs spilling over into mid-morning, cast against the pulsing drone of cicadas within the hazy sunlight.

The thick humidity smelled of damp vegetation and the sweetness of cut hay punctured by the faint, underlying sharpness of fresh manure in the distance.

Rebecca walked at Maxwell’s side, letting him take the lead in this little side expedition, because shestillhad no idea what was going on.

They’d parked Shade’s remaining vehicles half a mile down the road in an abandoned lot filled only with tall piles of upturned earth and scattered leaves. Then they’d made the rest of their brief journey on foot.

The enormous farmhouse in front of them, painted a deep, rusty brown-red, cut an impressive silhouette against the bright sky.

This was remote, all right. Nothing out here but cows and bugs and trees, with plenty of space for a displaced group of nearly one hundred now on the run for their lives, with little to nothing in their possession or available to them.

Maxwell turned down the dirt road toward the farmhouse, and the alarming surges of fear and regret and sorrow mixed with steady desperation radiated from the shifter with consistently overwhelming intensity.

Rebecca couldn’t understand any of it. This place looked completely safe. It seemed like the perfect place for Shade to lie low and collect themselves again after what they’d been through.

Compared to where they’d been, this was the epitome of peaceful.

But the anxious churning of Maxwell’s emotions shattered that illusion.

For Rebecca, anyway.

Hopefully, none of the others shuffling along behind them had picked up on their Head of Security’s hesitation, though they had to have seen the shifter’s reactions when he’d given Rebecca the news of their one and only option.

The air filled with the crunch of boots and shoes as an entire task force plodded along down the lengthy dirt driveway. Bor and Zida shuffled along together, directly behind their Roth Da’al and Head of Security, and when they reached the bottom of the wooden steps leading to the farmhouse’s front porch, everyone but Shade’s leaders hung back in the large, wide front lawn of freshly mowed grass.

Rebecca’s nerves frayed, her senses shoved into overdrive as she climbed those porch steps with Maxwell, their boots clomping in tandem up the wooden planks.

She looked over her shoulder to see the others huddled in one large group on the lawn. Zida, Bor, Whit, and Rick had stopped at the base of the porch steps to watch their Roth Da’al and Head of Security enter into this new arrangement on their behalf.

An unknown arrangement rife with potential danger none of them could prepare themselves for, including Rebecca.

Because Maxwell hadn’t told her a damn thing.

A little grumble and unintelligible muttering rose behind her before she recognized Bruce Urholder’s voice as he cursed, standing off to the side and poking around on some device the gnome had procured for his new magitek project.

All in all, the general mood among them consisted of utter exhaustion and their maintained willingness to plod along after those in command, without a clue as to where they were or why.

Rebecca didn’t know any more and they did, except for the certainty that if this last-ditch effort didn’t work out, if Maxwell’s single idea failed, they were all screwed.

Maxwell stopped at the front door painted a slightly darker shade of the same rusty red-brown, and paused.

It looked more like he’d frozen, either in indecision or fear, but Rebecca could no longer tell the difference between the strikingly varied bursts of intensely strong emotions surging out of him.

The only thing she knew for certain was that Maxwell didnotwant to be here.

And yet, he’d put it all aside to prioritize Shade’s needs and what was best for all of them.

That was something she understood all too well.

The silence enshrouding them on the porch while the hazy sunlight illuminated buzzing insects and dust motes in the air and across the sprawling farmland felt like a kind of drowning.

Rebecca wished she knew how to help him. She understood exactly what kind of war he waged with himself as he stood on this porch, staring silently at the front door, his jaw muscles clenching furiously and his slow, steady breath louder than usual.

He stood on the brink of something he had been entirely unwilling to do until the safety and security of their task force—of what might as well have been family—required such a sacrifice. Whatever it was.

Rebecca had stood on the same precipice just over forty-eight hours ago, sitting in that stupid trailer with Rowan as they prepared to cast a spell between worlds and face the Council.

Whatever Maxwell struggled with now, it was clearly too much for him.

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