As it leaves, I feel something missing inside me now, as I grip my solar plexus and chest. Aesa’s Truthstone sings sadly as a terrible instinct fills me.
Telling me of something precious I’ve lost.
“The Excommunication is finished.” Mikka’s voice is quiet as she gazes upon me. “You are no longer a clan member of the Blood Dragons of Norway and Sweden, Rikyava Andersen. Your clan title of Hög Skjaldmær is no more. Go your way, but your clan’s doors are now closed to you. Farewell… I hope, with all my heart, that you may.”
It’s the strangest leave-taking, as Mikka turns to go. But even as she does, she seems to think twice. I feel her suddenly swaddle us all in a far stronger shield to prevent eavesdropping.
Restricting all psychic contact, along with physical listening now.
“Rikyava,” she says quickly as she pins me with her gaze. “The Council has turned against you.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” I say with a bite, struggling up to my feet with Bjorn’s help as I rub my chest.
But Mikka grabs my wrist, her gaze intense as she forestalls me. “No, listen to me! They are headed up by Ruta now… and she is not your ally. Something is wrong with her, something I cannot yet puzzle out. But she is far from the woman who was once my old mentor’s friend. She is different, changed… I fear she has been this way for some time, though I am only just now seeing it. For the pronouncements she has been passing down through the Knight’s Council have been harsh. She says it is all in the name of theAncestors… but I feel in my deepest heart something else is going on. Some dark force is manipulating her… and perhaps Ruta isn’t even the drakaina we expect.”
“Say what?” I blink as Mikka gives us this warning—a tremendous thing, since she’s cut herself off from all Council telepathy to say this to us right now. As Aesa’s silver stone blazes upon my chest, singing brimstone red all through me, I know Mikka’s spoken true.
Though her words are something I did not expect.
“I’m not sure Ruta is who she says she is anymore,” Mikka hisses now with haste, as I feel something hammer against her privacy barrier, trying to get in. She and I both know it’s the Council trying to re-establish a connection.
As she gives her last effort—to block it.
“Trust no one on the Council.” Mikka squeezes my wrist. “It’s my job to Watch for them, and I do, but the ones I am watching now areinsidethe Council—and I know when to watch out. What I’ve seen with the web of deceit that’s weaving… let’s say it makes a Watcher’s blood run cold. I pray for the right ones to roar up and triumph in our darkest night. Something terrible is changing us… something coming from the inside, right at the very top. And the top is where Ruta sits, now. Beware of her?—”
Mikka cuts off as the Council’s power comes crashing in now. I feel them re-establish a mind-connection to her, and with a terrible last look, she turns.
Moving away.
Mikka’s gone up the hill, swaddled in the unique light-shifting magics that make her such a tremendous Head Watcher for the Council. Though it’s late afternoon, I can’t see her at all now, as she seems to disappear in the shadows and light cast by the coastal verge and the lighthouse.
As we all stand shocked, I know I have to call my uncle to tell him about this. I gesture to our nearest thief, re-clothed from fly-bags his people brought, asking for his phone. As he hands it to me, I hover with my thumb over the keypad. I know my uncle’s number by heart, but I can’t seem to dial it. Even as I hesitate, I feel that number wiped away inside my mind.
As Halfdir’s number, Trublut’s, and so many others, are erased from my mind, as well.
“Holy shit…!” Terror breathes through me now as I swipe to the map app on my borrowed phone. As I enlarge the map from our current position, seeing all the coastlines nearby, I can’t seem to locate Sweden.
I can’t find it, as I hover with my thumb over where I think Sweden must be, but which looks black to me now, dark. It’s like a hole opened up and swallowed that entire part of the world, with Norway vanished for me, too.
As I hold the phone out to Bjorn, swallowing hard.
“Sweden. Can you find it on the map?”
“Yes. It’s right there.” Bjorn looks at me with his brows furled. “What?—?”
“I can’t. I can’t find it.” I hastily turn to Ström. “You?”
“Rikyava, you’re being ridiculous. Sweden’s right there, like always—” But then, Ström stops. “Oh, shit.”
“What?” I ask him, as I feel his magic dive inside me through our bond.
“Your body, and mind…” He goes faraway, reading something about me with his power. “It’s like a thousand, a million holes have been cast through you now, disappearing parts of your mind and memories. My gods, I’ve seen nothing like it! Quick, tell me the names of your uncle and eldest cousin.”
“I have an uncle?” Befuddlement consumes me as I frown. “I know I have a cousin in France, Rhennic Erdhelm, King of the Storm Dragons, but I don’t have an uncle. Never did.”
“Ohhhhh, shit…” Mikkel whistles softly, as even Lærke gives an exclamation of horror.
I don’t know why they’re all staring at me now, as something about it makes no sense. “Why are you all looking at me like that? What’s going on?” I ask, wondering what the fuck has them watching me like I’ve gone batshit crazy.
