Page 1 of Forgotten Arcane

Chapter One

Neith

The vampire stares at me, “I’m sorry, I do not understand the saying. Goody?”

“Yeah, I was being sarcastic,” I reply with a sigh.

It’s always a bad sign when you have to explain to a supernatural what sarcasm is. It suggests that a lot of things are likely to get lost in translation, and in situations like these, clear communication is key. No more sarcasm for me for the moment then.

“What exactly do the Elders want?” River asks, his eyebrow raised and an unimpressed look on his face.

“Fuck that,” Coen says, moving closer to me. “A better question would be who the fuck are the Elders? I’ve never heard of them.”

River points at Coen, “He’s right, answer that one first.”

“The only Elders that I know are the Reaper Elders, and we are absolutely not going anywhere near them,” Raiden adds firmly, leaving no room for argument in his tone.

The vampire nods, “A fair question, the Elders are the eldest supernaturals, chosen to assist and provide guidance in extreme situations. Every race of supernatural is represented by an Elder. Although you will not meet all of them, there are far too many. So you only meet the ones deemed best to help you in your situation.”

My eyes narrow. Why does the phrase ‘your situation’ sound suspicious? Oh, I know, because it’s coming from an unknown vampire that appeared out of nowhere and is insisting that I go with him.

Because that’s not strange or suspicious at all.

“Why have we never heard of them?” Griff demands.

“They like to keep their existence on a need-to-know basis. It’s more peaceful that way. There was a time when everyone knew about the existence of the Elder Council, and as you can imagine, it got rather busy. The amount of supernaturals that would come to the Elder Council for trivial matters was getting out of hand, so they decided to cut back on the easy access. Eventually, supernaturals forgot that they existed, and only when a new Elder was chosen, or the need arose for the Elders, would a supernatural find out about them, as you are now,” the vampire explains. “Now, shall we go?”

I’m actually surprised at the amount of information that he just gave me. It’s been my experience so far that I have to pry the information out of people if I want an actual answer, and yet he gave us more information than we technically need.

I’m a suspicious person, life has taught me to be that way, so my immediate reaction is not to be grateful, but rather question why.

Is he being so honest now to get us to trust him, so we’ll go with him? Most likely, but is that for a good or bad motive? Or is he giving us lots of information now so that we don’t ask any more questions because there are bigger things that he’s hiding that he doesn’t want us to know about?

I think that’s most likely the reason why he’s been so forthcoming with answering our questions.

I raise my eyebrow and ask, “Go where exactly?”

“The Elders have their own realm. I promise that we mean you no harm, in fact we want to help,” his eyes move to my wings, and he frowns slightly, “it won’t even take that long, I will have you back here in ten minutes.”

“Lucius,” Ed interrupts, looking decidedly more ruffled than he was when we first arrived in the chamber.

The vampire looks over at Ed and raises his eyebrow at his appearance, “Ed.”

Ed clears his throat, “While I understand the urgency to see the Elders, I need to point out that they still need to receive their extra gifts.” Ed raises his eyebrow as Lucius opens his mouth to argue, “You and I both know that the Gods beat the Elders. Or do you not mind pissing the Gods off?” Ed smirks and adds, “Again.”

Lucius winces and immediately snaps his mouth closed to stop himself from arguing further.

“Holy shit, did you say Gods?” I blurt out.

Ed glances at me and smiles, “Yes, who else did you think would give you all your extra gifts?”

I frown, “I guess I hadn’t really thought about it. I was just focusing on getting through the Choosing and not dying.”

Lucius sighs, “You made your point, Ed, can we please get on with it. You know as well as I do that the Elders aren’t patient.”

“I would just like to point out that if it really will only take ten minutes of our time to have this discussion with the Elders, then the Elders could have come here and had the discussion with us, and it would have been a lot quicker and easier,” I point out.

“Actually, she makes a really good point. We’re exhausted and have some things that we need to deal with, not to mention we’re going to be weak after we’ve had the magic transfer from the Gods.” Van starts, “I’m not going to allow my family and team to go to an unknown realm to meet unknown supernaturals. Not only that, but they’re a group of supernaturals that we have never heard of before.” He levels Lucius with a look, “Would you?”

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