Page 54 of Bonded Ever After

I shake my head. “Our dads didn’t make this.”

They couldn’t have. It would have taken months to build something like this. More than that, I don’t know that they would have the skills to make a cabin by hand.

“Which means that there are other people in this realm.”

She turns to me with wide eyes. “Do you think they’re like the elves, or Xarex?”

Her stomach flips. “I don’t know, but we should be very careful.”

We need to be even more cautious in the Cloud Realm, because we’re not alone here. And as dangerous as animals are, we’ve already learned how much more dangerous people can be.

TWENTY-ONE

Ari

We’ve been traveling for weeks, following the maps we created that we believed would help us find the ancient trail leading out of Paradise Falls. But so far, we haven’t seen anything to indicate that we’re going the right way.

The weather has grown colder. Veric and I walk side-by-side, with Teth and Serrill trailing behind us. They’ve struggled to keep up with us each and every day, making an already miserable process even worse. I’d considered leaving them behind, but Veric had refused. I don’t know what it is about him. After his father dying and mother going missing, he shouldn’t care about the world. He shouldn’t care about other people.

I don’t.

But somehow, he still does.

He slows our pace when it gets to be too much for them. He stops and gives them a break when their new, not-worn-in boots hurt their precious feet. When he catches game, he makes a fire and shares the food with all of us, even though the two men don’t deserve it. We lead them to water, we find mushrooms and berries to eat, all while they stare around in fear.

They’re useless to us. Useless, and yet, unless I want to carry on by myself, I have to tolerate them. I have to accept that they’re here, dragging us down, even when this is a life-or-death situation, and I hate it.Isn’t it enough that we’ve taken such a gamble to try to survive?

“I can’t believe everyone in Paradise Falls is probably dead by now,” Serrill says, sounding out of breath and sad.

“So many lives lost,” Teth murmurs.

To my surprise, Veric stops and looks back at them, and I know he’s going to speak even before he does. “Maybe not.”

“Why do you say that?” Serrill asks, looking confused.

It takes Veric a minute to form the words. “When everyone went to pack, I warned my old caretaker about what was going to happen and showed her the map. She said she had a phone tree, a way of getting in contact with a lot of people in town very quickly, and she was going to warn everyone she could. If she did it, there could be many more people following behind us.”

I’m shocked. “You did that?”

He nods.

“Why? Those people are assholes. All they care about is themselves.”

He cocks his head. “They didn’t deserve to die.”

I fold my arms over my chest. “And what if they catch up to us and cause problems?”

He shrugs, his green eyes holding mine, saying a million things his lips will never share. “I wasn’t going to just let them die. If I did, I wouldn’t be any better than the Council.”

When he keeps walking, I follow after, feeling uncertain. Veric is the only person who makes me feel this way. Who makes me feel like he can see inside of me, to every tiny crack, and knows how to fix everything that’s broken inside of me with just a word. Maybe it’s because his words are so rare and precious, I don’t know.

Veric suddenly stops ahead of me.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, hurrying up to him.

Just in front of us, there’s… there’s a path lined by glowing flowers. They’re golden and beautiful, unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life. Nothing grows between the flowers, not even grass. It’s just a perfectly formed path.

“What the hell is this?” I ask.

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