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“The stone is still in the city?” Drayce demanded in shock. He’d been sure the Empire would be moving it to their own home capital by now.
Tomas nodded. “They can’t move it.”
“What?” Eno gasped.
Melita nodded in agreement. “We’ve been watching them and yeah, it’s the strangest thing. They can get close to it, but for some reason, they can’t get it out of the tower. They’ve even tried using their weapon on it. Like if they can’t have it, then they’d rather see it destroyed.”
Drayce sort of blinked at his food. That was…unexpected. Not that he knew how the Godstone was kept in the tower, but he hadn’t expected it to refuse to be moved. And based on his conversations with Caelan, the prince didn’t expect that either.
“What’s his plan?” Tomas demanded.
Eno sat back, pushing his nearly empty plate away. He folded his arms over his chest and frowned. “You give your contact info to me and Drayce. We’ll share it with the others. We can’t make any decisions until he gets an update about home.”
“I want to see him,” Tomas growled.
Eno shocked Drayce by shaking his head. He had never thought Eno would deny Tomas any request. Tomas was his boss. But then, Eno’s job to keep Caelan safe and alive came before Tomas’s desires. “I’ll tell him of your request, but I’m going to tell him also that I’m against it.”
“What? Are you kidding me?” Melita snapped.
“My first duty is to his safety. The fewer people who see him, the better. He is our only hope of saving Erya. I will not risk him if I can help it.” Eno was confident and unwavering in his decision. And Drayce couldn’t be prouder of the man.
“What are we to do?”
Eno frowned. “Go home. We’ll take care of Caspagir. There are bigger things going on here that we are trying to get to the truth of. He needs you holding the stone in our home. Don’t let them take it out of the tower.”
Melita’s shoulders slumped. “I was hoping for more.”
Drayce reached across the table and covered her hand with one of his. “He’s alive. We’re still alive and we’re fighting. We’ll get our home back and stop the Empire from hurting anyone ever again. I know it.”
“He will contact you soon. We need some time to talk and plan. The sooner you return home, the sooner we can enact our plans,” Eno said calmly.
Tomas nodded. “You’re right. It’s more than we should have expected. But the stone—”
“We have to know where the stone is at all times. We have to get him to the stone, and it will be far easier if it’s in a place he knows better than any other.”
Drayce snorted. “Even if it is crawling with Empire soldiers.”
Tomas gave a jerky nod. “We’ll see what we can do about that.”
Eno grabbed his wallet and tossed some money onto the table before sliding out of the booth. Drayce shoved a bunch of strawberries into his mouth, moaning softly at the sweet taste. He followed Eno out, barely resisting the urge to throw a crooked smile at Melita. It felt wrong leaving them so quickly, but what else were they supposed to do? Eno was right. As much as he wanted to trust them completely, they couldn’t be allowed near Caelan. It was the only way to keep him safe.
“What do you think?” Drayce asked Eno when they were more than a block from the Slippery Duck Pub, weaving between the other pedestrians on their way to various destinations.
Eno looked over at him for a second, his expression grim. “We have a long, ugly road ahead of us. Hopefully he managed to get us a little more help today.”
It went without saying that if Caspagir couldn’t or wouldn’t help them, they didn’t have much chance of defeating the Empire.
19
Rayne Laurent
Even after Queen Noemi left for her meeting, they lingered in the conservatory, not speaking. Rayne didn’t know where to begin, really. Six godstones for six trapped gods. Well, now one of them was dead, leaving only five, but still, five was significantly bigger than one.
Naturally, he’d grown up hearing stories about the old gods, though he struggled to remember any of them. What had he thought? That they were all dead and gone? Or maybe they were simply existing wherever it was that gods existed, far from them and their troubles.
The Godstone had been created by the gods, but he hadn’t believed that a god was sleeping in that stone. If he had, he would have been sure to keep a much bigger distance between himself and it.
And where did that leave Caelan? He’d been raised with the idea that he would one day bond with the Godstone, draw power from it, and give over his life to its service. He clearly hadn’t known that he’d be bonding directly with a god. Not just any god, but the Goddess of Life. Lady Tula.
