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“Understood.”
Jude signed off and flew Hannah in an easterly direction. She was very quiet, yet he felt her intensity. “Are you comfortable?”
“Yes, thank you. But please don’t worry about me. I don’t need small talk, not at a time like this.”
“You must have read my mind.”
“Well,” she said, “I have known you a long time, that even in social situations you’re not given to trivia and useless chatter.”
“I guess you do know me.” He was smiling as he passed over a village built up along both sides of a canal. He heard troll laughter, a baby crying in the distance, a dog barking.
As he flew above a nearby woodland, he dropped lower to the earth and saw three shifters racing at top speed, going almost as fast as he could fly through the trails below. Reese had done a good job getting them in the field.
He felt himself relax just a little. He had every part of his realm covered right now; vampires flying back-and-forth
, looking for Invictus or mist sign, shifters on the ground.
He flew Hannah over his land, talking to her quietly, naming the villages and towns, the creeks, canals, streams and lakes.
When he reached Kelltah Bridge, he hovered above it for a moment so that she could take it in.
“What a beautiful bridge.” She leaned forward to get a better view, holding his neck tightly.
“The bridge connects two distinct communities.”
“And I think this is one of your larger canals.”
“It is.” After a moment, he put them back in motion, passing over another mile or so of rolling hills and woodland. Again, he saw a squad of four shifters, in wolf form, racing along one of the ridgelines.
“They’re beautiful when they’re running. Elegant.”
He would never have described a rough shifter as elegant in either wolf or realm form, but seeing them through Hannah’s eyes he knew what she meant. “Shifters pride themselves even more than Guardsmen do on their athletic conditioning.”
Another village and waterway, arched with three bridges. Another woodland.
When Hannah stiffened, then gasped, he immediately drew them to a halt, hovering in the air. “What is it, Hannah? Do you see mist?”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry. No, nothing like that.”
Jude looked around carefully, searching for mist despite her assurance otherwise. “Okay, so what caught your attention? Had to be something.”
“Jude, again, I apologize. It’s just that I suddenly realized that I can see really well and it’s nighttime.”
He worked to settle his heart down and to not yell at her because he could sense her remorse.
He put them in flight again. “That’s part of your power base, to see well at night.”
“I might not be happy about the blood rose thing and this fire-power I have, but I’m loving being able to see everything as though the woods are glowing.”
He turned north, wanting her to see one of their prettiest villages with a predominantly hard-working elven population. Many were expert stone-masons and it showed.
He told her what he was doing and wasn’t surprised that when the village came into view, she made many cooing sounds of appreciation. “It looks like a village in Britain. I swear every window has a window box jammed with flowers and trailing vines. And look at the flower baskets hanging from the lampposts.”
“I thought you’d like it.”
As he drew close to the center of the village, she asked, “What’s going on there? Look at all the lights strung everywhere. Is it a wedding? Oh, my God it is! A real elven wedding. Would it be rude to draw close enough to see their arms joined with a vine?”
Both the elven and fae communities made use of vines during the ceremonies, wrapped around both husband and wife’s forearms, to symbolize their bond.
