Page 47 of Stone Sentinels

“Morrigan.” My answer sparks confusion, fear, and something else I can’t recognize in my allies. “She hit me with a brutal spell and escaped. Noni defended me and was injured in the process. I took her and Flumph from the house to get away from the soldiers. We made it to the lake and laid low until the explosion.”

Pyre floods the last of his power into Noni to heal her. She opens her large eyes and smiles at everyone.

“Oh, good! Noni was scared for her friends!” She throws herself at Pyre, and he holds his little companion close. Noni abruptly pulls away. “Master! You not well! We need to go to the big scary place so you can get your power.”

“Noni’s right,” Eilish says. “We can’t stay here. Pyre needs to get to the Echoing Spire and we need to find a place to take refuge until all of this settles.”

Kolvar clears his throat to get our attention. “After we close the portals and get this fella all fixed up,” he starts and points to Pyre, “We can head to the mortal realm to search for my clan. It’ll give us more fighters and it’ll be safe enough to rest our bones for a while.”

“Your clan is in the mortal realm?” Eilish asks.

“Yeah,” the satyr answers. “We take refuge in the deserts where others fear to linger. It’s where we chieftains set our camps to train newcomers and build our ranks. Galmer is our king. If we appeal to his better nature, he may be inspired to give us a hand in our quests.”

I unbuckle the leather straps that secure my armor and pull one of the plates free. Eilish limps over and places her hand on the wound, healing it with the bright light of her power.

“What the fuck happened?” I ask. She ducks her head, refusing to meet my gaze. “Eilish, I know how your power feels, and that explosion came from you.”

“Yes,” she says and nods.

“How?”

She looks up at me then and her eyes are wide and afraid. “Pyre tried to clear the battlefield, but the swell of his power triggered mine. It’s happened before. Once, when we were in the Ashland,” she admits. “It wasn’t on purpose. I couldn’t help it, Dragan. And now, so much blood is on my hands.”

Baron scoffs and shakes his head. “It’s on all of us, but mostly it’s on Cambion. He put us all at risk and didn’t think to make it right before he ran like—”

“Please!” Pyre shouts. “We need to get to the spire. Standing here pointing the finger of blame won’t change what’s already happened. We still have bigger problems to worry about.”

Pyre lumbers towards the Obsidian Mountains in the distance. I shake my head and follow, giving Eilish a small smile to let her know I’m not upset with her. She curls her hand around mine and I help support her weight so she doesn’t injure her leg further. I don’t mind holding her against me. Actually, I relish it.

Baron pushes his way ahead and shoves his shoulder beneath Pyre’s to help him.

“I’m fine,” Pyre argues.

“Don’t be so stubborn, you pain in the ass,” Baron grumbles. The vampire has changed so much since our group passed through The Veil the first time. “When the blast hit, I recovered my last memory. It was just black, empty space in my mind before, but now I know what happened the day Variant killed me. And fuck, it’s worse than I thought.”

“What happened?” I ask. “I only remember walking in to see you fall to the floor with the dagger of ice in your chest. Cambion and I were too late.”

He turns to face me and his eyes are hard. “Variant was completely convinced that we would turn on one another, that I would kill you and rise as the dark force in Morrigan’s prophecy. She told him that he had to kill me in order to stop that prophecy from happening. But all killing me did was put him underherspell and trigger a series of events that led to the prophecy coming true, anyway—only in her favor. She turned him against us and made him think we would bring the elves and fae to extinction,” Baron explains. “Morrigan said we would leave nothing but demons and orcs to roam the Realms.”

“So it was Morrigan who took your memories?” I ask.

“Yes,” the vampire answers. “The blade Variant killed me with was enchanted to erase my memory.”

“I see,” I answer as that horrible day comes back to haunt me.

“If you and Cambion would have shown up just a few seconds earlier, you would have seen Morrigan there... Morrigan and Silvanus,” Baron continues.

“Silvanus?” Eilish’s startled voice gives me pause. “What washedoing there?”

“Watching.”

“Why didn’t he interfere?” I ask. Baron shrugs. Perched on Kolvar’s horns, Flumph settles in for the long walk ahead of us. My mind reels, running through all the information I read before the cottage was destroyed by Eilish’s magic. Something strikes me then. “Cambion was Morrigan’s prodigy, right? She mentored him in the arcane arts?”

Eilish chews her lip and nods.

“So, in theory, he would be able to perform the same spells that she can, if she taught them to him.” I lower my gaze to the ground as I think. Would Cambion erase Eilish’s memories the same way Morrigan erased Baron’s? But, Eilish hasn’t had her memories from the moment I found her in that shithole tavern of Anona’s. Since I’ve known her, she hasn’t had her memories. So, it couldn’t follow that Cambion took them from her...

Unless Cambion knew her before I ever found her…

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