Page 98 of The Devil In Blue
I spread my wings, my muscles ready to take flight to one place I was certain to find what I was looking for.
High up in the cerulean skies of the Glyn, I could see my Labyrinth below where the mist had revealed the truth. A place never imagined I would take Briar, but when she chose to venture into that piercing fog, I couldn’t deny her. Something was missing. She knew it. I knew it. And the mist knew what it was.
Now I knew, too.
I sored high, scanning the shadowy woods below. My realm was vast and most of it never saw the light of day. In the darkness, the most wicked and vile of souls lurked to suffer an eternity of self-torment.
But I didn’t care about them. I was looking for only one monster.
I felt her long before my eyes found her.
Elanor was standing in the middle of a clearing. Where an old temple once stood proud, there were now ruins overgrown with moss and vines. The Glyn had once been the center of all things. The in-between. The place no soul could avoid, whether it was being torn from the mortal realm or introduced to it. Now, so much of it was a wasteland. Forgotten, even by me.
Even its temples where all manners of beings gathered to commune with the worlds and souls beyond were rubble. And Elanor stood within the carcass of the Temple of Larien like a relic from its dark past. She was staring up at the broken statue of the king before me. Ishkarin Merikith. Half of him, at least, for his torso and head lay separate from his legs.
I landed loudly on the ground, sending a whirlwind of leaves up in the gust of my wings. Elanor didn’t react. She never had. Around her stood three black hounds, one with a broken horn. Purity always had a soft spot in his heart for Elanor, especially because he used to accompany us on hunts before Briar came into my life. The others? They dispersed to the broken stone walls when I arrived.
Slowly, Elanor turned around to face me and Purity, his lips trembling with an oncoming growl, pierced me with his red eyes. As always, Elanor’s face did not betray her thoughts, but I was certain she knew everything. My nose twitched. My fingers curled into fists. Rage had become such a familiar feeling to me that I hardly knew where to direct it anymore.
Wordlessly, Elanor stared at me, her eyes a reflection of mine.
“Say something,” I hissed.
The silence swelled like an ocean around us, letting no other sound past the wall.
“What would you like me to say, my king?” she said calmly.
I took a step forward and Purity snarled, his long toes curling on the dusty stone floor.
“Tell me the truth,” I said.
“You know the truth.”
“I want to hear it from your lips.”
I took another step and Purity matched it. Still, I saw nothing in Elanor. No regret. No fear. No anger.
“I trusted you,” I continued. “More than anyone, I trustedyou. How could you—”
“She was a distraction,” Elanor said, still even-toned. “You could have sent her into the mist, but you didn’t. You let her lead your mind astray, Rune.”
“Astray.” I flared my nostrils, staring deep into her cavernous eyes. “And where did my mind wander when you took her from me?”
My voice was soft. Defeated. But the anger seared beneath. I knew she could feel it.
Elanor raised her chin at me, feigning confidence, but I knew it was fading. And that fire inside me was focusing somewhere I prayed it would never have to. Upon one of my own ravens.
“I do wonder, Elanor, what part of me you truly came from. Because I never would have betrayed Briar the way you did.”
“What part?” Finally, I saw tears glistening in those vivid blue pools. An emotion. “I…” her lips trembled. “I am the part that hasn’t forgotten your duty to this place. The Glyn. You have lost your way, Rune. You are meant to be the hunter. The protector. Theking.”
“What we did together was a betrayal of my true duty here. I meddled. I am not meant to be the judge. Only the keeper.”
“You always thought the realms would balance themselves if you went too far and they never did. Maybe what we were doing was right all along?”
And then it clicked. The moment I saw Briar for the first time flashed before my eyes. I had suspected she was another soul who had wandered out of the mist… but there had always been something about her that was not like the others.
“The realms did correct things,” I muttered. I met Elanor’s eyes again. “The realms gave me Briar.”
