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“Yeah. I’m good. Sorry, Dove. It’s just the magic. It’s exhausted me,” he explains, and she quickly wraps herself around him comfortingly.
“Thank you,” she breathes, and the rest of us all murmur our appreciation too, Leila included, although hers is a little more muffled around the silent sobs burning through her as she tries to keep it bottled up.
Raven releases Zane and drops to the ground, sitting cross-legged on the grass, and the rest of us follow suit except Brax, who continues to keep an eye on our surroundings. She rests her head on Zane’s shoulder and holds Leila’s hand in a show of support as her crying calms.
“What is Erikel?” Raven asks, and I shrug, unable to recall the name for it, but Eldon does.
“He’s a skinwalker, someone who can change their appearance to resemble someone else.”
Raven shivers, her face scrunching in distaste, and I can’t blame her. “I didn’t know that was a thing.”
“It’s rare. He’s technically classed as a shifter,” Brax adds without looking at us.
“Well, either way, we’re going to be okay. The Monarchy is coming soon. We just have to try and keep our heads down and get through all of this alive,” Raven declares, and Leila gapes at her.
“They are?” Hope is thick in her voice and Raven nods.
“We don’t know the exact details, but we know they’re coming. You’re going to need to get your head on straight and consider how you’re going to approach your father until then. I know it’s scary, and I wouldn’t want to do it either, but if he learns that we know he's working with Erikel, fuck knows what he’ll do. You saw the state of Sebastian.” Raven gulps. She’s shaken by that, by what she saw mottled into Sebastian’s back. If I’m honest, it threw me off too.
Silence descends over us as we all recall the lashing Sebastian got. If you had asked me yesterday if he deserved it, I would have answered with a resounding yes, as I’m sure my brothers would have done, too. Shit, I would have asked for the whip to do it myself, but now…nothing seems real. There’s no guessing what is and isn’t true anymore.
Fuck.
Wiping a hand down my face, I sigh.
“Do you think Sebastian is going to be okay?” Leila asks, and Raven’s lips twist with uncertainty.
“They seem to want him alive. But if what they were saying is true, and we piece the rest together for ourselves, then it seems as though he’s under some kind of magical control. But for how long, I don’t know. Have any of us ever met Sebastian without the influence of it? I don’t know, but that was horrific,” Eldon states, referring to the lashing, and I nod in agreement.
“Damn, thank goodness you all agree,” Raven murmurs, tucking a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. “I thought I was going soft on him for all the wrong reasons. I’m certainly not saying he’s suddenly a high priority for me, but that wasn’t fun to witness.”
Everybody hums their recognition of the truth. Everyone but Brax. I’m sure he’s twisted up about it more than the rest of us. He’s the one who promised to kill him. Promises are life vows to my brother. He doesn’t falter from them. That’s a concern for another day though. We have enough in front of us to deal with as it is. Especially since we need to head back in there and pretend like we didn’t just bear witness to any of that.
“So you think the Burton in the vision was the real Burton, and not the new Burton?” Leila asks, sending my head into a spin with the number of times she said Burton.
“Who fucking knows?” Zane grunts, rubbing at the back of his neck. “When I replay it, I think the projection was the realBurton, which still doesn’t fill me with joy because he was also conniving beneath the surface, and now we can’t question him on any of it because he’s dead.”
Dead.
“At the hands of Ruben too. That must have been the conversation we heard at the party,” Raven clarifies, and Leila scoffs.
“Why would my father not allow me to go to the party because it was full of Erikel’s men when he’s…” A sob bursts from her lips and she covers her mouth for a second before finding the strength to say it. “He’s one of them.” Tears pour from her eyes, betrayal claiming her, and it’s impossible not to feel sorry for her.
I don’t trust her as much as Raven does, but I also know it takes a lot for Raven to believe in the goodness of people, which is the only reason she’s here. As much as I’m glad she’s now aware of what her father is capable of, I half wish she wasn’t here having to deal with the consequences of that.
I don’t even know where to begin with all of that information, nevermind her. It doesn’t help that every time we uncover a new level of the information we’re receiving, it opens something else up. I don’t think we’re ever going to get to the bottom of this. Knowing where it all began is impossible.
“I think we need to join the others,” Brax states, nodding in the direction of the guild, and we all stand, brushing the loose grass off us as we watch the other members heading down the stairway.
“Are you going to be okay?” Raven asks, looking to Leila, who nods meekly.
“I have to be. It’s bigger than me and my feelings,” she admits, wiping the remaining tears from her face before pressing her hands to her eyes. I notice the icy white on her fingertips, butit’s only there for a moment before it disappears and she drops her hands back down.
“Did you just cover the fact that you’ve been crying?” I ask, noticing that her red puffy eyes are all gone.
Leila smiles from ear to ear, pleased with herself as she nods, and Raven giggles. At least we’re heading down there with a calmer vibe than what we left with.
The six of us head toward the stairs, as relaxed as we’re going to be, but my shoulders stiffen when I notice the telltale armor of the golden warrior, my father.
