Page 48 of Fractured Souls
Claude Darklace was either a military general or commander—I didn’t know the right term for their military structure—but his personal diary read a lot like a military log. It was extremely detail oriented, cataloging everything from a brawl at a local pub to a dinner with his family. None of it was particularly intense or riveting within itself, but I still found myself more than a bit fascinated, trying to learn from the ways he handled threats, hoping that I would find something that might help with our situation.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything that directly related to what we were dealing with when it came to the dark ones, and by the time I finished flipping through the pages I realized more than half of the jet was sleeping. I arched a brow at Cash and Lorcan who were both still reading, half eaten plates in front of them while mine sat mine completely untouched.
Shit, that would explain why I was hungry. “How long has it been?” I asked.
Lorcan’s gaze slowly rose from the journal, blinking as she looked around. “I’m honestly not sure.”
“Five hours,” Desmond said from across the aisle, looking up from his own book. “We still have more than ten hours to go, so if you wanted to get some sleep, now would be the time.”
I nodded but stayed in place, and Lorcan snuggled next to me with her book. Chuckling at her determination to keep reading, I kicked back in the recliner and put a hand behind my head, yawning. I planned on only sleeping for a small amount of time, but I knew I was sort of fucked when my heavy eyes fell shut almost immediately.
It was a dreamless sleep, absolutely uninterrupted. Well, until I heard—
“Rhett!” Lorcan’s excited squeak had my eyes snapping open as I inhaled sharply and tried to find my bearings. Her hand was on my shoulder, shaking me awake as my eyes adjusted to the overhead light Lorcan had put on in the otherwise dark cabin.
“Hey bunny.” I frowned slightly. “Everything okay?”
“Yes.” She nodded, her voice more of a hushed whisper than I’d thought when it pulled me from sleep. It had me relaxing a bit, glad it wasn’t a major emergency. I shouldn’t have let my guard down that much as it was. I needed to be on constant alert, especially since Lorcan had just been fucking taken from us again.
“You look excited.” I tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, noticing she was holding an open book against her chest.
“I found something.” She smiled, her eyes flashing with an eager hope. “It could be nothing, but…it could be something.”
“What is it?”
Dropping the book onto her lap, she pointed towards a section of the handwritten journal. “Right here it mentions a different text—almost like an encyclopedia of all of the threats they’ve faced and methods they used to handle them. It says it’s constantly updated to account for future generations.”
“Is it one of the books we have?” I suddenly felt far more alert.
“No, I looked.” She frowned. “At first I thought we’d missed it, but then a page later she mentions that it was placed in a different location—a trustworthy bank of information—to ensure that it could be updated accurately and unbiasedly.”
“Well, shit. What does that mean?”
Lorcan sighed in defeat. “I don’t know.”
“I think we’re on the right track,” Zander said, joining the conversation.
“How so?” I asked.
“Well…” Zander looked at the journal in thought. “It fits the description of the Institute in the Old Realm of the Ethereal Sea. It’s not only a bank of information, but since it’s sentient, that would lead me to believe that it would in fact be updated ‘accurately and unbiasedly.’”
Lorcan blinked. “That makes a lot of sense.”
“I mean, that would be a hell of a coincidence in the best way possible,” I hedged, not wanting to get our hopes up.
“If there is anywhere to look, it’s there,” Zander said. “Plus, if the Cosmos god is having us go there to meet the other prophecy holder, then maybe he has more than the obvious purpose in doing so.”
“Is he usually that helpful?” Lorcan asked bluntly, causing me to laugh as I ran a hand over her leg. Zander didn’t find the question nearly as amusing, but I had a feeling his relationship with the Cosmos god wasn’t nearly as friendly as Lorcan’s.
I hated the idea of that bastard being able to reach her dreams, but I supposed it was better than the dark ones.
“Sometimes,” he hedged. “I’m not used to him being this direct in his communication, though.”
“I’m special like that.” She flashed a smile before tilting her head. “I wonder who the other person is…”
Suddenly Lorcan’s voice took on an odd tone and she trembled slightly. I hissed in realization of what was going on as another tremor went through her and blood dripped down her nose and ears, the pastel color looking violent against her dark clothes.
“Shit,” Zander groaned, grabbing his head. “Be prepared to hold onto her, Rhett—this is going to be a bad one.”
