The Fallen Prince Part 26

"Who aren't they?" Wyatt motions to the map, where army units move in an ever-tightening circle. "Seems like everyone wants to join the let's-kick-Teag's-a.s.s outing. We're only able to hold our own with the help of Hadrain's and the council's combined magic."

The mention of the council grabs my attention. "Where is the council?" Not that I'm upset they're not here. After they tried to kill me, there's no love lost between us. Just thinking about them makes my skin glow hot.

"I sent them to a safe haven. One dies, the spell is broken. I'm not taking any chances."

I nod toward the door Hadrain went through. "What about-"

I don't get to finish my sentence before he jumps in. "I'm protecting him."

And I thought I was the only one with a superhero complex.

Hadrain comes back into the room, his face revealing his confusion, and he forces a smile. "Although I am pleased to see you all safe and sound, where is Kera?"

"Clearly not here," Lucinda mews from her chair where she is grooming her hair with long, careful finger strokes, and then pauses a second before saying, "What could possibly be detaining her?"

A ghost of a smile appears, flas.h.i.+ng her slightly long canines, and my gut sours. She has the att.i.tude of a bored, spoiled woman. Why do I always get the feeling we're her personal collection of mice she likes to maim before she eats?

I don't care how lovesick Leo is over her. I stalk across the room and yank her halfway out of the chair. "What do you know?"

"Only words." She looks from my hand on her arm to my face. Anger sparks behind her eyes for only a split second, but I see it. She sends a crackle of energy to buzz my hand. When I don't let go, she tugs and lets out a snarl of warning.

"Where is my daughter?" Hadrain demands a little louder.

"In the Unknown," Signe says, drawing all eyes to her.

The gla.s.ses in Hadrain's hand slowly bend out of shape. He blinks, though he doesn't see. I'm sure of it. He's thinking like I do, of all the horrors Kera is suffering. "H-how?"

"Someone kidnapped her from the human realm." Signe's face has grown so pale, her freckles stand out. Her gaze flickers to mine almost apologetically.

It's the truth. She has nothing to hide or to be sorry about. "They took her because they knew I'd follow her back here."

"Taken? She was supposed to be safe in your realm." Hadrain's gaze wanders the room and stalls on Bodog. The little guy ducks into his cowl and shuffles backward. Kera's father storms over to the suddenly whimpering dwarf. "Was it you?" he demands. "You stole her when she was a child. Did you do it again?"

Bodog s.h.i.+fts from pale to dark, trying to blend in with the color of the paneled walls, and I realize I don't know him at all. "You were in prison because you stole a child?"

Lucinda stills. Her pink tongue darts out, like she's licking cream from her lips. "Interesting."

All this time he led me to believe he was unjustly imprisoned, that he was being persecuted for being different, when in fact he's no better than a criminal.

Bodog knocks into the wall and curls against it, shoving the walking stick out as if it has the power to keep him safe. "I only wished to protect her."

Hadrain grabs the stick. "Do not lie to me."

The wood s.h.i.+fts in Hadrain's hands. It creaks and moans until a familiar face appears in the grain. "He tells the truth, my friend."

I know that crackly, dry voice. Still, I can't believe it.

"Faldon?" Hadrain shoves the stick as far from him as his arms will allow. "What trick is this?"

"No deceit," my renegade grandfather a.s.sures him. "Although at the time he didn't know it, Dylan saved my soul by trapping my spirit in a tree. Bodog found me and fas.h.i.+oned this walking stick from one of the limbs so I can keep an eye on the boy."

"Huh," Wyatt snorts. "A talking stick." He looks around. "And n.o.body else finds that a little weird?"

"Not anymore," Reece says, though he folds his arms across his chest, clearly not comfortable with the idea of a soul getting trapped in a piece of wood. "Though the irony of Dylan having the ability to control fire and his grandfather being a piece of wood isn't lost on me."

Not only did Bodog lie, but he'd been helping my grandfather, the man who was ordered to kill me and nearly succeeded, to spy on me. What more is Bodog not telling me? Though firsts can't lie, that limitation doesn't seem to apply to any other creature in this realm.

Signe puts her arm around Hadrain and leads him to a nearby chair. She orders a soldier to fetch the older man a gla.s.s of wine. With the stick still gripped in his hands, he sits. He's aged ten years in less than a minute. He catches Signe's hand. "No one leaves the Unknown alive."

"Rubbish." Faldon's face recedes into the grain and then reappears facing his friend. "They say that because no one has ever tried."

"Hey," Halim calls from his perch next to the map. He swipes his dirty hand across a section and it's like a flap in a children's picture book-push it aside and you see a hidden object, but on the map it's a section of land. "There are a lot of black thingies over here."

Wyatt rushes to the map and pushes Halim away. "What did you do? Don't touch the map, kid."

"I didn't...well, not much. I only moved a few things around. We needed to cover this side better, because that's where the Corlians are from...and you know they breed like rabbits. Fresh soldiers are coming."

Wyatt glares at his brother. "Where'd you get this kid?"

"I'd listen to him."

"My dad taught me chess." Halim sneaks back to the map and moves a few more units around. "Which everyone knows is war on a grid. It's all about position and power. We have great position and a good bit of power. Only an idiot can make a tangle of this."

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

"Untangling this."

Catching Halim's hand in action, Wyatt shoves his face into the boy's face and points at the map. "Does that even remotely resemble a grid? No grid. Don't play chess with my men. This is not a game. Got that?"

The two start bickering, and I turn to Reece and Leo. "If Halim's right, and a new wave of soldiers is on its way, we have to get Kera before this thing blows up and we're trapped here. The griffin's dead, but there has to be something else big enough to fly us into the Unknown. Any suggestions?"

Silence hovers over us, and then Reece shrugs. "How about flying monkeys?"

Leo frowns and pushes his hair out of his eyes. "Are you serious?"

"I've been dragged into a parallel realm where there are talking sticks, a magical prince, and a dwarf who acts like a mood ring. Flying monkeys make perfect sense."

"Here's a tip, bro. Unless you've seen a flying monkey, don't offer it as an alternative." Leo drops his head and rubs the back of his neck. "Flying monkeys. That is messed up."

Reece's eyebrows rise. "Sorry, Cranky Crab Pants. Miss your nap time today?"

"We need something bigger," I say, steering them back to the problem at hand. "I wish we had a mongo flying lizard."

"Or how about a Pegasus?" Reece offers. "They have griffins, doesn't it stand to reason they have a flying horse or two?"

Leo's head pops up. "I'm an idiot."

I'm pretty sure he doesn't want me to agree with him, but when I try to get him to expound on what he means, he rushes over to Lucinda, pulls her out of the chair, and points to me. "Don't go anywhere until I get back."

One moment they're there, the next, they're gone.

"What the..." Reece looks from where they were to me, his mouth hanging ajar.

Oops, forgot Reece has never seen Lucinda before. "Leo's girlfriend isn't human."

Wyatt turns to us. "What was that all about?"

I shrug. "Wish I knew."

Halim, who's turned into a pint-sized general in the making, punches Wyatt's shoulder. "Pay attention. If we move these over here, then we cut off their supply of men."

"I already thought of that, but we don't have enough manpower to move there without weakening these defenses." He points to an area thick with black and green. "We're leapfrogging over to here, which will cut off their tail. If I do it right, I can keep biting off chunks without them noticing."

"Are Granel and Jason in on this together?" I ask. It's the only plausible explanation. "Granel needs a leader and Jason's ego fits Granel's type."

Hadrain pushes away the wine Signe holds out for him. "You know who is behind all this?"

"We came across a dying Corlian. He said their new leader was young, brutal, and reckless, and that he's not from around here. That description fits Jason. He's from my realm. I think he's the one who's been trying to get me here." I recall the dream I had, how angry he was, and how insistent he was that I come find him.

"I've already b.u.mped into him. He's got a super-villain complex bigger than Darth Vader's and it's directed at me." I no longer know what's going on in Jason's head, but I'm pretty sure for him, our friends.h.i.+p has become another disposable commodity.

Reece runs a hand against his forehead and looks at his brother. "Jason?"

"Carl's kid, the one into wrestling."

"That little s.h.i.+t is causing all this? How'd he get involved?"

"Me," I say, though it irks me to admit it. "I brought him here. This is all my fault."

The room grows silent. Condemning. I don't blame them.

Wyatt coughs, breaking the quiet. "I don't think the two of them are working together. Granel left before we knew about Jason."

Halim jumps down from the chair he's standing on. "The Corlian said their new leader was powerful. How did a regular human get magic?"

"Does it really matter?" I snap. I don't want to say. It's bad enough I brought Jason here, but to tell them I think I might've transferred some of my power into him when I saved his life...well, I'm sure they'd like me even less, if that were possible at this point.

"We humans are amazingly adaptable," Wyatt says.

"Not that adaptable. Someone's helping him," Halim mutters.

Adaptable, yes. Invincible, no. I won't make the mistake of underestimating Granel again. When he took off, he could have stumbled onto Jason and found a new hate mate. He didn't run scared. He was looking for a better opportunity. And if it isn't with Jason, then I have no idea who it is. Which scares me even more.

Reece moves to the table and peers at the map. "Does the map have the ability to single out individuals?"

Hadrain rises and steps toward the map. "Yes."

The older man places his hand on the map key near the top left corner. His says a spell in a language I don't know and the key changes, showing Granel's name next to a bloodred dot, but the map doesn't change.

"It appears as if he's either dead or has left Teag."

Or he's hiding. I poke at the map. "Halim, what did you do to make the map move?"

"I touched it here...by accident," he says, biting into the lie like a normal human boy, "and pushed up."

I place my hand on the spot and move it up. A large s.p.a.ce appears, hovering over the map with a dark line near the edge. But what's even more interesting is a bloodred mark in the midst of the black. Hadrain points. "There he is. Granel."

I pull my hand away and the s.p.a.ce disappears. "Is this place familiar to anyone?"

It takes only a second, but Halim's eyes grow wide. He slams his hand on the spot. "The Unknown."

Kera was sent to the Unknown by someone who wants me dead. Jason wants me dead. At this very moment, Granel is in the Unknown. "It sure seems like Granel is working with Jason."

"It doesn't make sense," Hadrain says. "He was Navar's lieutenant because he showed the same level of hate for humans. He would never work with one."

But there's no way he's working alone. He doesn't have the charisma to inspire like Navar. Granel is a follower through and through. All the signs point to Granel working in Jason's camp. I'm with Halim. Jason has to be getting his power from someone, and Granel is all about the nastiest magic available. "Are you sure Granel and Jason don't know each other?"

Hadrain changes the map key again, specifically asking it to show Granel and Jason's forces. "If they are working together, the color will be the same." Granel's faction is bright red while Jason's turns from black to a medium blue. "Same objective, different leaders."

That doesn't mean they're not working together. Jason could've easily pa.s.sed on the leaders.h.i.+p of the Unknown to Granel, a guy who hates me as much as Jason does. Though I look for it, I don't see Jason's deep-blue marker anywhere on the map.

"Are there any other hidden s.p.a.ces in Teag?" I swipe my hand over the map, searching for any.

"Only a few tiny ones where people keep their treasures."

Frustrated, I push away from the map. "Find them and make sure Jason isn't hiding in one of them."

I don't want to think he's gone somewhere beyond Teag to drum up more manpower, but I wouldn't put it past him. "Bring out maps of the neighboring kingdoms. We need to find him."

There's a rush. Maps are slapped onto every cleared surface as soldiers search for Jason.

"We'll find him," Wyatt says confidently.

Reece comes up to us and says in a quiet voice, "I know Jason. There's no way that little p.r.i.c.k is smart enough to do all this damage."

"He's not waging a war," Wyatt injects. "Not a war any of these people are used to. He doesn't care who lives or dies."

"That's because no one here is real to him." I remember Jason commenting on that the first time we entered Teag. "He knows once their loyalty is given, they'll do whatever he asks, even if it goes against their instincts to survive."

"So what's he doing?"

"All he wants is to prove he's better than me." I remember Jason's face, how it contorted when he said killing me wasn't personal. He actually believed it, like nothing he did in this realm was real. "He's playing a game," I say. "And right now he's winning."

An Unlikely Friends.h.i.+p.