Page 39 of The Night Prince 2

His eyebrows lifted. “Leave? Oh, no, no, you misunderstand. At most, I would only be gone a season of the year. I would return. You must not worry that I would abandon you–I mean, humanity–ever. And I have no intention of doing even that until things are far more settled here in a few centuries or more.”

Declan seemed to absorb this for long moments, but then he shocked Aquilan when he reached over and touched the Sun King for the first time on his own. His right hand closed around Aquilan’s left forearm. A tingle ran up his arm into his chest. It almost felt like magic. As if Declan were imprinting something upon him. His Shadow stared intently into Aquilan’s eyes and even the sunglasses could not hide the feeling behind his next words.

“Whatever Vesslan has made of this place, you must make it yours, King Aquilan,” Declan said firmly. “Change it into what you want. What pleases you best.”

Realizing what must be worrying his Shadow, Aquilan assured him, “No matter what it looks like, I will stay, Declan. You must not worry–”

“I would have you love it here,” Declan murmured even as his hand disengaged from Aquilan’s arm. The tingles remained. “That way there would be no question that you would remain here forever.”

Reward

Rhalyf sipped his coffee as Elasha and Cara–that very unlikely pair–made a plan for the Separatists to report back on if they had seen Darcassan anywhere in the ruins of Chicago. A bit of shy smiles and whispered words later, and the two women got up. Elasha left the cafe after receiving a warm hug from Cara while Cara, after watching fondly after Elasha’s retreating form, had disappeared into a back room, ostensibly to contact the Separatists and put their plan in motion.

Separatists with some kind of rift location and frequency map. Interesting. Must investigate this.

He was not necessarily worried about Aquilan’s nephew. Darcassan was a gifted Mage so he could defend himself. Plus, the king’s nephew was on a snipe hunt as he searched for a rift to Illithor in the ruins. The fact that there were no creatures coming through from the Under Dark–for whatever reason–meant that he was even less likely to be in danger.

Unless he ran into whatever eliminated Seith and Leisha.

That did give him pause. But if Darcassan had run into this thing–or person–then there was likely little enough to be done. He would either be unharmed or as dead as the other two Aravae. But he didn’t believe Darcassan was dead. Not because this thing–person–couldn’t have taken out the elven prince, but that he likely would have no reason to.

Darcassan hasn’t even met Declan unless he’s taken to going to dwarven pubs, which would be a real change in behavior. Although he might have come to talk to Finley about his view of Illithor.

Yet he was certain that was not the case. Shonda and Michael spoke of Finley telling the Glass Scholar about what he had seen. He had been ignored otherwise. Darcassan had likely inferred that Finley–wrongly–was a foolish human who could add no more information than he could gain from speaking to Neldor so he wouldn’t have bothered to seek him out directly. And that meant the likelihood of his meeting Declan–and insulting him–was close to nil. So there was no reason for the thing–person–to have killed Darcassan like they had killed Seith and Leisha.

And, for now, it was daylight. Darcassan would be safe. Perhaps he should do a location spell just to be sure though he would need something of Darcassan’s to make it work and that would require a trip to the palace. Aquilan’s nephew would likely be back in the time it took to do all of that. He hoped. If he was not then…

Then that makes things more difficult. I hope for Aquilan’s sake that stupid elf is fine.

Gemma cleared her throat. Finley did the same. Rhalyf was snapped out of his logical reverie. They were looking at him expectantly. He had, after all, dragged them in here after Elasha. They likely wanted to know why. They’d played along after all. But he wasn’t sure what to tell them. The women had been speaking softly enough that he guessed only he with his acute elven hearing and magical enhancements to it actually caught all of their conversation.

“Tell me it isn’t weird that Aquilan’s niece and the Separatist leader’s daughter are good friends,” Finley said dryly.

“You think they’re only friends?” Gemma’s eyebrows rose.

Finley blinked at that. “You think they’re… more?”

“I think if they aren’t, they both want to be,” Gemma said with a wise, teenaged shake of her head.

“What a fascinating observation. I believe you may be right, Gemma,” Rhalyf said in his Gran persona as he, himself, picked apart their interactions in his mind and did find a romantic undercurrent to it. That also might be useful to him later on in dealing with Elasha and the Separatists. He filed it away for future use.

“So what were they saying?” Gemma asked, resting her chin on her hands. “Anything good?”

“Define good,” Rhalyf asked back.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Whatever you think is good enough to spy on them for. You dragged us after you in here fast enough.”

He took another sip of coffee. Even with the milk and sugar it was bitter, but not unpleasant. It was actually growing on him. It also had him feeling slightly energized.

Hmmm, an interesting side effect.

“Gran?” Finley prompted softly and kicked him under the table.

“Yes, what? I was just thinking,” Rhalyf murmured.

“About what they said to one another? We want you to share. We are owed an explanation,” Finley prodded.

Seeing both their gazes still on him, he sighed, “So curious. Both of you.”

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