Night two in Fredal was another bust, another failure that I can add to my list that is now an award-winning novel.
We scoured every building to its bones all day and night. Went so far as to corner a few wealthy nobles and others whose names were given to us when we started asking questions. Arthur got...passionate when a man a good ten years younger than my father refused to say a word. The others had to turn away when Arthur started getting answers, but I forced myself to watch. I forced myself to look at every drop of blood and listen to every scream or groan the man gave because somewhere in the world Fauna is doing the same.
The man ended up not knowing much, only that Xaxias and his followers traveled through here on their way to Fernweh. We retraced his steps, walking the same paths he did based on the words of Papa Pernell and bystanders who remember the strange foreigners who "felt wrong." I could feel his power when he came into the ballroom, but I thought that it was due to my power that I could sense it. The people here carry no power, and yet they all said he felt wrong.
He looks wrong too, but they said he always had his hood on.
We looked for reasons as to why he'd risk going through a town, but the results were as barren as a desert. It took us most of yesterday to do that, along with a portion of the night. We only stopped to get food, and then we headed to the outskirts and searched some more.
Nothing.
Svenja, her first mate Hough, and the three other men who were with her left yesterday morning. The night before took a while to explain to them, as well as to Mr. and Mrs. Pernell. The Pernell's offered – actually, they didn't really give us a choice to take – their three spare rooms that used to be occupied by their children. Svenja and her crew took one, and the rest of us split into the other two, Vlad taking the first watch.
We redirected Svenja and the two other ships she had with her to a different destination, but the other one-hundred and seventy-two will continue to Fernweh.
I shake my head at the thought again. I can't tell if I want to punch Clarice when I first see her or hug her or kiss her or light her ass on fire. One hundred and seventy-two ships that belong to pirates, and she wasn't even here to see the utter shock on our faces.
Definitely lighting her ass on fire. And then, maybe, kissing her.
We walked Mr. Pernell to his restaurant, leaving Svenja to give her share of our thanks to Mrs. Pernell who, according to Lance, wouldn't put up as much of a fight to our show of thanks as much as her husband would. A few gold coins and rubies from her treasure trove did the trick. Once we left Mr. Pernell in the care of his workers, we set off for another day of searching and listening to rumors being passed from ear to ear. Night fell, and we took one last meal at Papa Pernell's, and then set off into the night towards Cadorelin. Two days along the coast and we'll come upon the Crystal City.
I've been there a few times, invited by King Cyrus and Queen Aria. They're kind rulers, shy when it comes to being social, but sweeter than candy. I've always thought of them as some distant aunt or uncle since they always treated me like their own son when we visited. I suppose that they did that with every child though. As they have yet to produce an heir, their succession may very well end up relying on an appointed heir rather than the traditional inheritance. They've never spoken about it, but you can see their eyes dim when they watch children laugh or play or hug their parents who smile so widely at them that you'd think their cheeks hurt.
I loved all those visits to Declan Cove and watching the dolphins jump alongside the ship when we sailed out for the day. I loved the Crystal City because it was the opposite of Fernweh. Where we had hills and large flower fields, they had the ocean and a wildflower valley that was full of every color and shape you could think of. There's so much light in the city, even at night, but now I fear that the capital will be anything but bright. This is our last real hope of finding her. Sure there are more towns we could search, but none of us think she'd be there. None of us are really sure that she's even on this continent. It would take us months to search the western continent and another year or so for the eastern continent. If we don't find her here, then...
"You're drifting."
"We're all drifting," I retort purely out of reflex now. I have to catch up with my mouth and look over to find Benny watching me, his face carefully blank.
Benny's been more of an anchor for the rest of us. He still drifts himself, but he's managed to bite down on it and now helps us do the same. None of us can keep going without a clear mind, it's just so hard to do so when all that's plaguing us are possibilities and what-ifs. Benny has always been silent, but now his silence is more like a lion's roar than its normal purr. It does more damage than healing, but he's still keeping us on our feet.
"We're going to find her Darius," he reassures, returning his gaze to the flattening landscape ahead.
"It's not finding her that has me worried."
"It's how we'll find her," Alex finishes from behind us.
"She's the strongest woman we know. Something tells me that she'll be more than fine."
"You don't know that."
No one has a counter for Arthur and his declarations. The first time Winston attempted to do so during our first cycle on the road, everyone had been neck deep into arguments, all of them attempting to prove her strength or resilience or stubbornness. Arthur and I had kept quiet in the dry land of the Fry Desert just outside of Vera and their capital patrols. Neither of us really had much in us to join them, so we listened, and then Winston yelled something about torture being the last thing that could break her. Neither elements so much as blinked to warn me, and suddenly Arthur had Winston's untied tunic fisted in his hands and looked down at him with wholly dark eyes that had even me instantly submitting to.
"You know nothing about torture," he snarled, his voice grinding into something close to a predatorial growl. I swore the critters that had once roamed nearby had gone silent at the sound of his voice. Winston looked horrified.
Vlad moved slowly as he came up to Arthur's shoulder. "Arthur."
He shoved Winston away so hard that Winston stumbled and tripped, hitting the dirt hard enough to bruise his elbow which took the brunt of the hit to catch him.
"Torture may pierce your skin and crack bones, but that's not why people do it." No one moved as Arthur spoke, eyes pinning everyone in place as if daring us all to run and give him a reason to use the clenched fists at his sides. "They do it to break you - all of you. Your body, your strength, your mentality - they replace everything that you have to hold onto with pain until it's the only thing you know and the only thing you think about. They cut and maim until the pain is all that runs through your mind. Until it's the only thing you could possibly remember ever feeling. Gone is the past of your life with the laughs and the love and the joy, and all that's left is what you can feel and what you can see in front of you. That's why they leave you in darkness with nothing but a fucking bucket to piss in. So you can fall of your own accord and forget everything but what they want you to remember. We may be trained to never break and before I had every faith that she would die before giving him what he wants."
"Before?"
Arthur paused, the air around him stilling for all of a second before it buzzed with unease and surprise. He hadn't realized what he had said, too caught up in his anger routed from fear and worry. His lungs fought to keep his breathing steady, but I could feel the lies spilling from his mouth before he even turned to Garrison and responded in a calm even tone.
"No matter how much you prepare for what can come to be, you cannot prepare for everything. My father knew that better than anyone, and he drilled that into our minds. Even went so far as using his own death to prove it."
I knew that Arthur didn't see his father's death as a lesson the man was trying to teach his children, but he took it as a lesson, nonetheless, and since losing his sister it's been eating at him from the inside out. But no one spoke for the rest of the night because we all knew he was right. Hope only goes so far. I, however, don't think it's true that she could break under their pressure. She's the most stubborn-headed, brave, untamed, and vicious woman I know. It'd take more than just a few Gods to make her fold, and even then I can still see her somehow managing to glare downward at them despite their supposed tall forms.
Whatever secrets or information or just her agony that they crave, she won't give them the satisfaction and simply let herself die before she does. If anything, she'd find a way to end her life before they could, and that's why we need to find her, because strong and brave and vicious as she is, she's already proven that she'd give her life for the rest of us, and I can't let her die. I won't.
I miss her. Messy and opaque as my emotions may be, I know that I miss her because there's this gaping hole in my chest that I find myself rubbing a hand against subconsciously all the time as if I could ease the pain that sits there. I miss her laugh and the way her nose scrunches a little when she's angry. Or how she'd call me names, some creative and others she'd end up reusing because I had worked her up into such a frenzy that she simply couldn't come up with a creative one.
All the little things from the way her arm would fit perfectly in mine as we walked through the halls, to the way she'd always sit sideways in a chair with her legs thrown over one armrest. I miss all of it, but really, I just miss her. Her presence always seemed to calm me without me realizing it until I was stuck in the cabin in Dearg Forest. Just the feel of her hand in mine and how her calluses would scratch against mine from swords long held to protect us would have sparks of energy lighting at the contact and zipping up my arm and down my spine.
And in those three days of sitting in the cabin, I remembered the last few spent during the Elysian Festival. The promises we made at the moat and how I never felt more alive than when we just lay there staring up at the glimmering stars. I thought that was living, and then she kissed me in the middle of the fields on the Day of Rivalry and I knew that blissful as the night prior was, the feeling of her lips against mine, her arms locked around my neck while mine gripped her hips and pulled her closer until she was firmly pressed up against me, the stars couldn't compare to what shot through my body at that moment.
Gods, the thoughts I remember thinking when we once again found ourselves tangled around each other didn't do the moments justice at all.
And when I had her in my lap on my throne on the day of the ball, I wish I had held onto her tighter. I wish I was back to that exact moment and could let the world disappear while I buried my nose into the crook of her neck, taking in her rosemary scent that Kat liked to secretly add to by dabbing some cinnamon perfume onto the dresses she wore. I don't think even Clarice knew that Kat did it, and I didn't notice until the air element picked it up for me. I haven't said anything about it out of selfishness. I like that I know and that no one else but Kat knows. It's like a thing of my own that I picked up. A tell she doesn't know exists.
But that same night I made a vow. I vowed to myself that I would never let her go, and on the same night not two hours later, she was gone. The golden hues of daytime and the warmth of the night suddenly vanished with her that day in the Dearg Forest. I may have torn a hole in the mass of dead and haunted trees, but one in equal darkness and destruction uprooted itself within me at the same time.
All those warm and happy memories now feel like ghosts of another life. Gloomy as they feel, and painful as the gap feels, I still miss her. I miss her and I want her back - I'm going to get her back, one way or another.
Looking back out at the landscape ahead for us to travel across, I scan the horizon and the small hills to our left, praying to every God or being that's listening to protect her and let me get to her in time.
"She'll be okay," Benny repeats, sounding less convincing.
I look back at him and the others, finding all of their eyes distant and their legs walking over sticks and fallen trees of their own accord.
Gods and their Saints we're in desperate need of a pick-me-up. Look at us, depressed and sulking teenage boys who are all fighting to save the same girl. That's a story right there. Probably one that Clare would've read. She would've likely made a comment about it. Something along the lines of:
Fourteen men, one girl. Who will be the one to win her heart and carry her off into the sunset on a white horse? Is it one of the loyal, kind, and ravishing soldiers? Or the brother who will do anything to get back his gorgeous, talented, and pure-hearted sister? Or will it be the lousy Prince who merely wants her for what's between her legs? I suppose only time will tell.
She'd do exactly that. Inflate the Bhaltayr's egos, then stroke her own, and make me sound like the Prince the rumors once spread about my rather incredulous sleeping habits sound true. We'd laugh and snark, all attempting to make insults or tell her how much of a waste of good air she is. We'd hate it yet love it, and then we'd start fighting about which one of us would ride off into the sunset with her. The arguing would go on for hours, each of us trying to puff out our chests and pull dominance, and she'd just sit there and listen to us hash it out.
She wouldn't stop us, wouldn't so much as whisper her input because she was enjoying the fact that fourteen men are trying to compare each other's cocks for her. Heathens, she wouldn't even blink if we started swinging, she'd just tell us what we did wrong and how to fix it.
The corner of my mouth twitches up, and I find myself holding it rather than trying to get rid of it. For days I've been doing it, saying that I shouldn't be happy and enjoying some small part of life while she's suffering. But Clare would want me to smile. She may have aimed to harm both me physically and my own ego when she first came to the castle, but soon enough, she became the cause of so many grins and smirks that felt way happier than they probably looked.
Benny was right when he told us that we'd get nowhere if we kept drifting, and though it's hard, it's even harder to not try.
A silver lining...
I look around again at the vacant faces around me, finding a few faintly smiling, likely from a similar thought as mine. My eyes land on the two men behind me and I slow my pace to drop back beside them.
"So..." I say as I try not to let my smile get too wide. "Serac."
Gabe instantly trips on nothing, barely restoring his footing before he faceplants. Ethan chokes on the water he was drinking, resulting in him spitting it out and Alex getting a midday shower. Probably should've waited until after he was done drinking. Though I don't think I'm entirely sorry.
Al and Henry are laughing, Winston and Amel are giving each other a look, and the others are smiling wickedly. It's hard to tell if Arthur is smiling, but his eyes have the mischievous gleam in them that usually has me debating whether to run or stay as still as possible and hope he doesn't attack.
"What about it?" Gabe ponders, avoiding all of our stares.
"I think it's beautiful." Henry chimes as he puts an arm around each of their shoulders. At least I was right about the pick-me-up.
"Sounded more than beautiful," Winston mumbles not so silently.
Ethan whirls, his face a sudden red fury I haven't seen him bear before. Odd. "You know what?"
"What?"
"You're just jealous."
"Why in all of Ker would I be jealous?"
"Because he didn't pick you."
Silent reaps again, only this time it's not the slow and heavy feeling that the air element senses around the group, but the jittering bumbles of shock that whirls around everyone except the three knowing men - and Arthur, of course, but I've come to learn that the man rarely has shock buzzing around him.
"It's always the quiet ones," Vlad whispers with a shake of his head. I don't suppose he's wrong.
"Wait," I interject, still trying to figure some shit out. I look Winston up and down, wondering how I missed so much when I'm rarely away from any of them - if ever. "Since when have you been into guys? I mean you've always had female...partners."
"Okay, first of all, I'm too good for either of you assholes who deserve each other and all the faults and dipshit that comes along with it-"
"Why thank you," Ethan exclaims dramatically with the tip of his invisible hat.
"-and second of all-" he turns away from the two glaring men and spins back on me with the same anger "-since we were ten."
"What!"
Winston rolls his eyes, and behind him, Amel stares at the ground with wide eyes. "I need Kidzra."
"I need something stronger," his brother agrees, looking just as vacantly wide-eyed.
Winston ignores it all, holding his hands up in innocence. "In my defense, the Gods make some really hot guys."
"Yes, yes they do," Gabe agrees.
Gabe and Ethan – or as I'm now inclined to call them: Ethabe – start making seriously intense googly eyes at one another. Like deep, sexually intense, desirous, googly eyes. I want to look away before something happens, but I just...can't. But I need to, because it's starting to make my skin prickle – and not in a good kind of way.
It's ten times worse for me since I can literally feel what their intentions are. People aren't kidding when they say that the air changes when shit like this happens. I can feel every emotion and every intention that's pouring off of them. Every. One. Ones that jump and jolt suddenly weave within others that glide and feel as smooth as polished pearls. An opposing balance, but definitely one that feels as if my intestines are being twisted into weaves themselves.
Gods and their Saints I'm going to hurl.
"Oh, for Saint's sake," Arthur hisses as he picks up his own pace. I match it, wanting to get as far away from them as possible. "Mind hump when we're not around."
I slide him a thankful glance as the air element slowly returns to normal and my stomach settles. I swear that his eyes are laughing when he notices it.
"We could physically hump if that's what you'd prefer."
A wave of desire roars off of Ethan, and I have to swallow the small amount of vomit that found its way up my throat. "Please don't."
"When we get to Cadorelin, you two are sleeping in another inn several blocks away from us." No one disagrees with Benny, but I'm still rooting for them. Even if it means that I'll be getting less sleep and constantly having an empty stomach no matter how much I try to eat.
The joking and prodding and curiosity of everyone continue on as the sun takes its time descending from its noon peak. I try everything to keep the air element suppressed, but due to the close and the currently unwanted proximity, it doesn't work. Then I try focusing it on other things that shift the natural wind direction, but that only gives the whispers in the wind louder voices, and some of them I don't want to hear.
All the constant cringing of my body mixed with the small tilt of my lips when I look back to find Ethabe walking closer to one another's side is beginning to give me a headache. Though it does have me wondering if this is how the rest of them felt when Clarice and I made public displays of affection. False ones at first, but eventually, the pretending suddenly became real. I'm not sure when it happened, but I don't regret it.
I do, however, regret my choice of the pick-me-up.
Arthur glances sidelong at me again when another wave of lust pulses from behind me and churns the breakfast we had. This time a soft chuckle does come from his throat, and I toss my middle finger at him, my other hand clutching my stomach.
"Shall we not stop for lunch then?" he asks in a teasing tone.
"Fuck off, Rheasydia."
He laughs again, and I can't help but echo it. I really couldn't eat a thing right now, and my stomach was growling for at least an hour earlier.
My smile suddenly vanishes as quickly as it came when the realization strikes a knife into my chest. This is the first time any of us have truly smiled or laughed or joked since the Elysian Ball.
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