He turns me around until my back is to his front and begins to massage from my neck down. Tingles race up and down, but I ignore them. “Mmm,” I moan, feeling each knot and muscle release beneath his magical fingers. He takes his time, working all the way to my lower back. When he stops, I’m a puddle.
Leaning forward, he whispers in my ear, “Better?”
“Yes,” I murmur, almost whimpering when he removes his hands.
He gathers our stuff and leads us to the clearing where we entered the forest.
Trudging behind him, I let out a huge sigh of relief when we reach it.
He laughs. “Using new magic always takes a bigger toll until your body gets used to it.” He creates a portal and motions for me to go first before following.
“Thank you again for today. I’m looking forward to learning something new tomorrow,” I say.
Grabbing the backpack, he takes off toward the kitchen. “You’re welcome. See you tomorrow, Arden.”
* * *
Arden:I moved water today without using witch power! But Fallon is not sure if I’m Elven yet. Could be Fae. We’re narrowing it down, though.
Valerian: That’s fantastic, Arden. Nothing to report here. Theron?
Arden: Valerian! You promised.
Valerian: …
Valerian: Fine. It’s worse than usual. With my visits so far apart, there are a couple of new challengers for king. The council doesn’t feel they present any threat to me, but who knows? The council wants to speak to them first and try to get them to back down.
Arden: What do you mean new challengers for king? Other dragons can challenge for the right to be king?
Valerian: The crown is not passed down from father to son automatically. When a king passes, the most powerful dragons will challenge for the right to be king. Everyone knew I was the most powerful when I claimed the crown from my father or there would have been challengers. But with my infrequent visits, the young dragons aren’t as aware. This happens every few hundred years, nothing to worry about.
Arden: I’m still going to worry. Who’s next? Daire?
When a text doesn’t appear, I glance at my phone and notice Daire’s not on the chat.
Arden: Anyone heard from Daire today?
Theron: He sent me a text earlier telling me it’s a full rebellion, not an uprising. He’ll be in touch soon. I’ll go next. The archivist found a letter from the old dark Elven king to the dark Fae king, telling him of the MacAllister massacre. He mentions Valerian’s father snapping and the resulting deaths, along with your rise to power, Valerian. He gives further details on how he thinks the rest of the witches rose up against the MacAllisters and the subsequent destruction of the entire MacAllister clan. What’s interesting, though, is his last few sentences. He fears an outside force riled up the witches, driving them to destroy the MacAllisters. He cautions the dark Fae king to take precautions.
Arden: Do you think it’s valid? Can we ask him for more information?
Theron: He died about twenty years after this letter, I think. I’ve petitioned to see the dark Fae king so I can ask him for his thoughts. In the meantime, we’ll keep digging.
Astor: We received the boxes from Witchwood. There are thousands of documents, with different languages and from different time periods. Reading each one was frustrating, so I wrote a spell to translate all the variations into our modern language. Now I’m slowly scanning the documents into the computer. Once they’re in the system, we’ll be able to access them and search for answers.
Arden: That’s fantastic! I’ll come by tomorrow and take a look.
Astor: No, it’s fine. It will take a few days to get them all into the system. Pretty boring right now.
Arden: Okay. Fallon and I will continue with the training. Goodnight, everyone.
I tapmy phone against my chin. Something feels off with Astor. Is he avoiding me because we had sex? Valerian told me Astor hasn’t ever been in a relationship, which is fine because we’re still finding our way. But maybe he isn’t even thinking in that direction? Regardless, I want to see the papers for myself, so I decide to go by there in the morning.
12
DAIRE
As I lie on the cot, I feel my phone buzz and my stomach drops. Forcing myself to look, I pick it up and see it’s a message from Arden, not the person I was dreading it to be from. Solange has been sending increasingly erratic texts for the last few days. Sometimes sweet and other times threatening, but it’s the recent texts filled with manic words of death that worry me. Thankfully, Arden’s message, while short and to the point, brings a smile to my tired face.
