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I desperately want to shout.Gold and gems? How fucking useful!
“What about the House of Cosmos? Is there nothing in the stars to go on?” Cobar asks, his frustration clear in his words, even though he tries to hide it.
Lord Oakfall gives a little bow. “The stars are misaligned, and the unique energy frequencies of the stars tell us nothing of our missing Lady Cassia.”
Sulien groans. He should. I suspect he’s the reason this search is required in the first place, although I’m equally frustrated. How could she just disappear? The fae can move mountains, shift stars, bring storms, or clear skies. We can bring wealth from the ground and speak to the dead. How is it that we can’t find one missing woman?
“Does the House of Memories have any information?” Sulien asks.
It’s a good question. The House of Memories is confusing. Even I don’t entirely know how they work, but their most powerful fae can take memories from people and even objects. They can steal a moment with just a touch, some with even a look.
“There was one memory taken of use,” he says, his tone wooden, but powerful, in that strange way that only someone from the House of Memories can speak. “See,” he whispers, and the word rings with power.
A vision appears in my mind. It’s of Cassia walking home. The memory is colored by the person watching her, their focus shifting from her to other things and back to her, but the sight makes my heart ache. She’s wearing a long blue dress that dips low in the front and hugs her body in all the right ways. Her pale hair is left loose around her shoulders, cascading down her back and moving as she walks. Her hazel eyes are bright and her jaw tight, as anger and sadness dance in her eyes. She turns a corner, disappearing behind a building that I recognize as one from the human town. Then, the memory is gone.
I blink and notice my hand is reaching out for her and drop it. “That’s it?” I ask.
We have immense fae power at our disposal, and all we have to go off of is a human’s memory of Cassia walking home? It’s not enough. We need more. How can we bring her back to us with nothing but this useless shit?
“Yes, that’s all the information we have.” Lord Oakfall says.
I shake my head, finding it hard to catch my breath. “That’s not enough.”
“Prince Forrest…” Zane has a warning note to his voice.
My eyes lock with Lord Oakfall. “We need more information. That won’t help us get her back.”
His brown eyes look almost sad as he studies me. “It is painful to be far from one’s mate.”
A terrible weight settles on my chest, and my eyes sting.
“We will keep looking for her. We will not sleep until she is found,” he swears before turning and leaving, the door shutting behind him with a solemn sound.
The four of us stand, unmoving and silent. I can’t look at Sulien, or I’ll rip his throat out. This pain I’m feeling… having my mate far from me, he knows what caused it. He has some role in her disappearance. We’re calling on all the resources of the fae world, and yet, he holds information from us.
“Let’s sit down and eat. No matter what happens today, we need fuel to handle it.” Zane squeezes my shoulder gently, as if he can tell just how on edge I am.
That’s one thing about the fucking Winter Prince, he might not like me, but he kind of gets me. Years ago, we came to an unspoken understanding that borders on a friendship. The same can’t be said for the other two. Cobar likely treats me the same way he treats everyone he knows, and he’s likable enough to get away with it, but it still doesn’t mean he truly cares for me. And since everyone knows Sulien has the personality of an angry porcupine, people dismiss the way he talks to me, but I know deep down that he doesn’t give two shits about me. It’s more than the usual disdain he has for the world. He hates me.
I cared about that a little until now.
Since we were toddlers, I feel like I’ve been trying to bond with these men. I thought they were just about my only chances of making real friends who were my equals. But no matter what I did, they didn’t like me. Some part of me felt like I just had to keep being patient. But now that I have a mate, a mate I’ll one day have children with, and a house full of love, I don’t care about Sulien’s bad attitude, I just care what he knows about Cassia.She’smy chance of having love and an equal partner, not these men.
I just need to find out what Sulien knows. What he did. And fix it.
“Shouldn’t we–” I begin.
Cobar lifts a hand to silence me. “Let’s be real, none of us have eaten or slept much since Cassia disappeared. We owe it to her to handle her search with at least some food in our bellies, so we don’t make poor decisions based on an empty stomach.”
He’s right. I hate that he’s right but he is. One of the first rules of survival is to eat and sleep. Otherwise, you’re no use to anyone else. My father taught me that great lesson when I was five. He starved me and forced me to stay awake until I had some very vivid visions about dying from a broken heart and tried to eat a tree.
So, I’ll eat. I’ll eatandfigure out what the fuck is going on.
Suddenly, I feel the iron demons trying to break through the barrier. The attack is so swift and so powerful that I stagger. The bastards try a lot of different things, yet nothing is worse than when they hit us hard and fast. But I simply grit my teeth and breathe through the pain as I funnel power to the barrier. Slowly, the pain eases, and their attack becomes useless against the reinforced barrier. I open my eyes to see the other men opening their eyes, looks of pain on their faces.
“They never stop,” Cobar says, his words filled with exhaustion.
“And they never will,” Frost responds, but there’s no emotion in his voice.
