Undone, p.10
Undone, page 10
The door closed and then opened again, and the king stuck his head out and looked at her. The confused expression on his face was very clear.
“Not quite the emotional outburst we meant, but it looks like it worked.” Paisley smiled.
“Told you I could do it.” Daxx walked over to the king.
“Come on. This won’t be pretty.” Kara motioned for everyone to keep walking.
Trendan glanced over at Ulric, who looked amused.
“I think I know why Tor and your brother like it here or around them.” Ulric motioned to the royals, walking quickly in front of them.
“Mmm,” Trendan stepped aside so two more of the women could go by them. “It’s his kind of chaos, for sure.”
“Fun.” Ulric shrugged. “It is called fun.” He grinned at him. “I think I’ve caught the same bug.” He wiggled his eyebrows at him and then caught up to the last woman and started talking to her.
Trendan blew out a breath and kept going. he had too much to sort out to pause and think how anyone could think that this was fun in any way.
“Hey, Tre.”
He turned to see Liri and her other walking behind him. “Liri. Abe.” He inclined his head.
“The meeting now?” Liri looked up at her other and smiled, something playful in her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Good. I need to talk to Uncle Os and Rafael about something and they’ll both be in the same place.”
“Oh?”
“Two of the women at safe houses want to be guards.” She glanced at Abe briefly. “Nerine, you remember her, right?”
Trendan thought for a second. “She’s from Solrelm.”
“Right. She went over to Interealm to help set up the safe houses and has decided she could be a guard.”
“We don’t…”
Liri laughed. “Oh, I know we don’t train women guards.” She pointed to Rafael as he came out of a door in front of them. “But they do.”
Trendan had to bite his tongue so he wouldn’t blurt out that Solrelm women didn’t do that. Times were not the same now. “You have my blessing if that helps.”
“Good.”
“You said two.” Ulric glanced over his shoulder at her.
“One of the others is in an Alterealm safe house. Grier. She’s not good at being a victim.” Abe shrugged. “So she wants to fight instead.”
“I say the more guards, the better.” Ulric nodded. “With everything going down, we need more.”
“Exactly my thought.” Liri took Abe’s hand and started walking faster. “I’m going to catch Rafael and get his input before I bring it to my uncle.
They watched them jog down the hall.
“Female guards.” Ulric mused. “That’s going to announce everything before it’s announced.”
Trendan focused on the carpet in front of them. “We need to find those fathers and announce it to the entire realm. Soon.”
“Yup, and we need to hurry up, or we’re going to be standing in this hall all alone, and I don’t mind sharing that the idea is a little scary.” Ulric increased his pace. “I’ve had dreams I’m lost in a maze before, and it’s one I don’t want to realize for real.”
Trendan grinned at him. “I don’t even want to know.”
“No, you do not.” Ulric laughed.
Chapter Sixteen
Jeri stepped into the room and then moved to stand beside the door.
“Are we here for a meeting or a dance?” Karma whispered.
“Meeting.” Jeri looked around. The room was ornate, making her wish she’d worn something fancier than jeans.
“Okay, fill me in on who is who in this room.”
Jeri watched Trendan go over to the end of the room and talk to a man with black hair that was shaved at the sides. She didn’t know who he was, but he was scary. She looked around. She hadn’t expected so many people. There had to be close to fifty in the room. “I don’t know everyone.” She motioned to the group standing near each other. “All the really big ones are Alterealm royalty or their guards.”
“That one guy is huge. He’s a guard, right? He doesn’t look snobby enough to be royalty.” Karma whispered.
“We’re not all snobby.” Someone said from behind them.
Jeri turned around quickly to see King Chase and his queen, Alona, standing there.
He smiled at them. “Quite the turnout.” He looked around the room and then to his mate. “You’re okay? The baby?”
Alona placed her hand on her swollen abdomen. “The baby is either doing gymnastics or kung fu fighting right now.”
Chase grinned. “Knowing this family, it’s both.” He straightened and held his elbow out. “Shall we make our entrance, duchess?”
Alona shook her head but took his elbow. “Yes. Let’s.” She grinned at Jeri as they walked by.
“And that was?”
“King Chase, Queen Alona,” Jeri said.
“Ah, I’ve heard he’d give prince crazy a run for his money.”
As if on cue, Bastian came through the doors, stopped and looked around, and then zeroed in on Trendan and made fast work of heading to him.
Nova came into the room and watched him. She looked worried.
“Is everything all right?” Jeri looked at Bastian and then back to her.
“Yes. We just ran into Elyas in the hall.”
“Elyas?” Jeri didn’t know who that was.
“Bastian and Trendan’s older brother.”
Jeri looked at the door. “Oh.”
“I’m going to go hang out with the cool kids,” Karma said.
Jeri noticed she pointed to the Alterealm princesses. “Behave.”
“Don’t worry. I already got the lecture from Capri that I was to curse no one, no matter how much they deserve it.” She rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t do that at my first royal gathering—maybe my second, but I need to see who can zap my butt first and steer clear of them.” She smiled and then walked away.
“Excuse me.”
Jeri and Nova turned to see a man standing in the doorway.
“Elyas.” Nova glanced over her shoulder to where Bastian and Trendan were.
Both men saw him and started walking toward the door.
“I’m going to say this is not a meeting I’ve been invited to.” He stood stiff. “Judging by the expressions on my brothers’ faces.”
Jeri didn’t look to see what their expressions were. She was too taken with this man’s soul. It was old. That part didn’t surprise her as he was Trendan’s older brother. The part that had her placing her hand over the stone resting beneath her collarbone was the fact that his soul was mourning loudly. He’d lost someone. She sucked in a breath and then glanced away and blew it out. He’d lost his other. Only a connection that strong could cause that kind of pain. She met Trendan’s curious look as they reached them but looked away and back at his brother.
“Elyas.” Trendan put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Father and Sigor both agree that your presence may not be the best idea.”
“I gathered as much.”
Jeri’s heart was aching for this man. There were areas of his soul she didn’t understand, but she could see him with a woman beside a river, and they looked so happy. Did she offer condolences? She wasn’t sure. He may not want to be reminded, although, with the wailing of his soul, there was no way he could forget.
She glanced away to see Trendan was watching her. He knew she was seeing his brother’s soul. She bit her lip. He had never asked her, so there was no way for him to know that she didn’t choose to see. It happened no matter what.
“I’ll come by to speak to you after this,” Trendan told his sibling.
“Yes. You know where to find me.” Elyas said with his eyes downcast like he was a scolded child.
“If you think of any more details, we could use that information,” Bastain told him.
“Yes.” Elyas nodded but didn’t look at anyone. “I will ponder it further and write anything down that seems relevant.”
“Okay. Good. We’ll talk later.” Bastian went over and opened the door, and waited until a very dejected man walked back out.
“That was depressing,” Bastain mumbled and walked away.
Jeri turned to look at Trendan. “He’s lost someone.”
Trendan cocked his head to the side. “You saw that? He said he wasn’t…”
“His soul is mourning, and I saw him with a woman that he loved very much.” She inhaled slowly and willed her eyes not to leak. Now was not the time to do that.
“Mourning? It happened so long—” He blew out a breath and looked at the door. “I hadn’t realized.”
“Why isn’t he welcome here?” She motioned to the others.
Trendan stepped closer, his hand out, and then stopped, an amused look on his face. “Perhaps you should take that off here.” He pointed to her pendant. “I wouldn’t want you to shock my mother, the queen.’
“Oh.” Jeri hurriedly took it off and put it in her pocket. “I forgot.”
“It’s fine.” He took her elbow and gently steered her to the corner. “Elyas was involved in helping the lawless faction…”
“Lawless faction?”
“Dark-souled ones.” He said quickly. “They used his other against him. It was a long time ago, but he didn’t know how to bring her here because…”
“No one knew you could have others outside of Solrelm.”
“Yes.”
She searched his face and could see the despondent look in his eyes and the shame. She wanted to hug him but knew that might not be an acceptable thing to do when the room was filled with so many. “Oh, Trendan…”
“He’s given us a lot of information to find the fathers, but he doesn’t know who is in charge or which of ours are involved.”
“She died?”
“Yes. Giving birth to their child. He wasn’t there, so he doesn’t know what became of her soul…”
“Oh.” She put her hand over her mouth and then turned so her back was to the room because stopping the tears wasn’t going to be easy this time. “He’s never been allowed to mourn.” She said softly. “I saw him by a river. You should take him there and let the man mourn without being watched by a whole realm because he’s a prince.” She sniffled and cursed her stupid soft heart.
“Are you all right?” His hand rested on her shoulder.
She nodded. “Yes. Just emotional from what I saw.” She blew out a breath, wiped her eyes, and then turned around. “It comes with the territory sometimes.” She smiled but could tell by the assessing look on his face that he wasn’t buying it.
“That’s a good idea. Taking him there. I feel like—” He waved his hand around. “—I should have known what was happening with him, and maybe, I don’t know, Bas and I could have…”
“It’s not your fault.” She touched his arm. “Fate does things for reasons—it’s just hard to see through the feelings and figure them out sometimes.”
His gaze moved over her face for several seconds. “Will you help me find the place? Was there anything you could use as a reference to find it?”
“I’ll think about what I saw and…’
“All right, everyone. If we could take our seats.” King Troy’s voice was easily heard over all the conversations.
Trendan stiffened and stood at his full height again. “We’ll discuss it after this.”
“Okay. I’d like more time with your brother too. See if I can find the same place exactly.”
He offered a small smile. “We can do that.”
Chapter Seventeen
Trendan looked around the room as Prince Victor spoke on the subject of guards, training, and what protocol was going to be used when they were in Solrelm. He knew it was important that everyone have an understanding of this, but he wished for things to progress a little more quickly. He couldn’t get Jerika’s reaction to Elyas out of his mind. What had she seen that it brought her to tears? He looked down so his emotions wouldn’t be clear to anyone else.
“I feel like this part is blah, blah, blah.” Bastian leaned over and whispered.
Trendan smiled at his hands. At least you never had to guess what Bastian was thinking. “I’m going to bring up the housing for the father’s when he’s finished.”
Bastian nodded and continued to tap his fingers quietly on the table.
Trendan looked over to see his father was solely focused on what Victor was saying. His mother was looking across the room. He turned and knew that she was looking at Jerika. She’d seen him standing closely with her, that part he’d caught as soon as they’d turned to come and sit down. She turned and made eye contact with him; she looked amused. Was that a good reaction? He really didn’t know anything for certain at this point.
He leaned closer to Bastian. “Jerika says Elyas’ soul is wailing in mourning.”
The tapping stopped, and he turned to look at him. “For his other?”
Trendan nodded.
Bastian blew out a breath. “I feel like I should ask that science elder from Alterealm if she can build a time machine so we can go back and fix…”
Nova reached over and took Bastian’s hand.
Trendan grinned at her subtle way of telling him to be quiet. He looked over at Jerika and was surprised that she was watching him. He wished for a moment that he was closer so he could see if her eyes were more grey or brown at this moment. When she’d turned to look at him while they stood in the corner, he noticed they were browner when she was emotional. He was completely enamored with her colorful eyes. Biting the inside of his cheeks so he wouldn’t smile at her, he watched her cheeks flush and wondered what she was thinking about right at this moment.
Bastian sat forward. “Trendan wants to discuss the housing for the fathers.” He blurted out.
Trendan looked around to see Prince Victor sitting down now.
Clearing his throat, he stood up, but not before he caught the amused look on his mother’s face. “Thank you, Prince Victor.” He inclined his head to the large, scary man sitting beside his cute little mate. “I’m sure most of you by now have heard that we are planning to announce to the entire realm that they have been deceived all this time.” He paused to check that no one had questions. “Before we can do that, we need to find as many of the fathers as possible.” He looked over at Princess Reagan. “I’ve already spoken to Princess Aireese of FaTerra, and she is going to be working with some of hers to unlock the spell on their memories.” He nodded. “We don’t know what’s going to happen when we make the announcement, so securing the fathers and hopefully the others and their offspring will be a priority.”
“We’re going to work on the houses for the women—in Alterealm.” Princess Paisley said. “They’ll be safe there.”
Trendan nodded. “Thank you.” He leaned forward, put his hands on the table, and glanced at Jerika briefly. “The one father whose mind has been freed again has some peculiar issues with his soul.” He straightened up again. “I’m going to get Jerika to explain it because it’s not something I can see.” He looked over to see she looked surprised, but after something her friend Karma whispered, she nodded and stood up.
She clasped her hands together in front of her body, and he could see how nervous she was. “It’s hard to explain, but whatever that magic did to him, it has left dark spots on his soul.” She looked at Crissy he noticed, who was almost on the table now. “It’s not like the dark-souled ones trying to take souls. This is almost an absent piece of Glen’s soul.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.” Trendan’s mother said. “Are you able to see if it’s something that is temporary? That perhaps the soul can heal?”
Jerika glanced at Trendan for a moment and squeezed her hands together again. “Souls don’t heal, mam’.” She said softly. “Not in the way a body does. If it’s hurt or injured in any way, it doesn’t recover from that.” She glanced at Nova for a second. “It can still function, but that part is gone forever.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t claim to know everything about souls. I’ve never had anyone I could speak to about it. But that is what I saw and my understanding of it.” She nodded and looked right at his mother.
Trendan watched his mother study Jerika, and he found himself holding his breath. Whether it was for Jerika’s sake or the wanting of his mother to like her, he couldn’t be sure.
“Thank you, Jerika.” His mother was using her Queen voice, which made it impossible for Trendan to guess her thoughts. “I believe—” She looked at his father. “—we need to put our new soul expert,” she smiled at Jerika, “in touch with some of our elders that work in the chamber and possibly—” She looked at Alona, “Some of your elders so we may piece all of this together.”
Jerika nodded. “I would like that.”
“My concern now—” His mother zeroed in on himself and then Bastain. “—is if this is going to become something unbearable for those fathers, the ones that have had this done to them for a long time. Is it in their best interest for the magic to be undone?”
“We’ve already discussed starting with those that have been hidden away the shortest time.” Trendan stood up again and looked at his mother. “The logic being that the likelihood of their other and child still being alive.” He looked at Princess Reagan. “With the exception of Aldis Hayden, we’d like to have Princess Aireese work with him while we move the rest of the fathers.”
Trendan’s dad looked at Reagan. “Aldis is your father.” Reagan nodded. “Do you know if he had shared his soul with your mother?”
“I believe he did, sir,” Reagan said. “I have no proof of this except the mourning my mother had of his absence.”
His king nodded. “I am curious how many did share their souls.” He looked at Sigor, “Do you think it would show to us after this magic?”
Sigor looked at him for a moment. “I can’t be sure, sir, but I believe the mind is a powerful engine in the body, and if it can be duped or suppressed, perhaps the soul can as well.”
Trendan hadn’t even thought of this.
