Bricrui (The Forgotten: Book 2) (23 page)

Sleep came to him only hours later, and he
was woken by the sun’s light beating down on his face not long
after. With a sigh, he pulled himself from the hammock. Eventually
he ran out of reasons not to go home and he dragged his feet into
the house he shared with Slade. He still hadn’t come to a
conclusion about how to tell people about the real goings-on, but
had at least decided that it would be best to talk it over with the
band and maybe if all of them told people together, they would be
taken seriously.

Slade was waiting for him at the table. He
watched his entrance in silence. Lorcan trudged over and picked up
a breakfast roll and stuffed it in his mouth, avoiding Slade’s
piercing gaze.

“Did you tell anyone?” Slade finally asked
him.

“No,” Lorcan lied. If Slade thought it was
okay for him to lie about their parents and everything else, Lorcan
saw no reason to be truthful with him.

“Good.” Slade was silent for a few minutes.
“Kali is just trying to do what’s best for the tribes.”

“You have no idea what Kali is doing,” Lorcan
shook his head, having totally given up trying to convince him. “I
don’t think that sterilizing is even what she had wanted to do, it
was just the worst she could get the others to agree to.”

“It’s the only way to ensure that someone
like the Dark King doesn’t rise again. She says that someone almost
just did. The stories the two strangers told confirmed this.
Everyone will be better off.”

Lorcan didn’t bother answering. He shuffled
his way into his bedroom and collapsed on his bed, exhausted. He
was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.

*

“Natalya,” Layna knocked on the girl’s door
lightly, though it was wide open, and she watched as the girl
paused in her play with her sister. Though both of them wore
slightly haunted expressions, being back together was obviously
very healing for both girls. Natalya had acted much too mature for
her age of late while looking for her sister, and Layna was glad to
see her acting more like the little girl she was.

“Yes, Your Majesty?” she asked, untangling
herself from the sprawling arms and legs that she and Alina were
wrapped together in and giving her a small curtsey.

“I hate to bother you…” Layna started,
hesitant to draw her away from this moment.

“What can I do for you?” the girl asked, her
voice taking on the more serious tone.

Layna sighed. “I need to try and get in
contact with Hunter. Last we knew, he went back for the woman who
helped you get Phoenix free, but he hasn’t returned yet, and we
haven’t been able to make contact. We need to know more about the
tribes now. There is too much at stake to simply wait for him. None
of our expeditions to find them have yielded any success as they
seem to have an enchantment protecting them. If he was able to find
them again and learn anything more, we need to know.”

“So why do you need me?”

“We had been communicating via a mirror that
I enchanted for him, but it appears that for whatever reason he no
longer has it. Therefore, I need to contact him without the aid of
the mirror. But I don’t know him well enough to be able to sense
his presence when I search for him magically. Since you traveled
with him, you may be able to detect where he is.”

Natalya stood up straighter. The little girl
with the iron will. Layna smiled.

“It would be an honor to help you, Your
Majesty.”

“Thank you,” Layna said sincerely, begging
their leave of Alina while she stole her sister away for a few
moments.

They made their way down to the practice
rooms while Layna asked Natalya how Alina was doing. She reported
that as far as she could tell, there were no signs of the Bricrui
whatsoever as of yet, so that was promising.

When they arrived, Gryffon was already there
waiting for them and he greeted them both warmly, Natalya with a
fatherly embrace, and a quick kiss for her. They settled themselves
around the focus stone.

“What do I have to do?” Natalya asked.

“Just look into the stone and focus all of
your attention on Hunter. Try to remember every little detail that
you can about him; the way he smelled, the way he moved and talked,
what he told you about his life.”

“Alright,” the girl agreed and immediately
sat and stared into the stone in front of her, a crease forming at
her brow in concentration.

Layna and Gryffon each took one of her hands
and held each other’s, forming a circle around the stone. They
closed their eyes and let the feelings emanating from the stone
wash over them. Layna could feel Natalya’s memories of the man. She
could almost smell the slightly horsey, musky smell, hear the
gentle deep baritone, and feel the warmth of his hands. She also
could feel a rather strong emotion tied to these memories. It
seemed Natalya had a bit of a crush on the man.

Once they had the feel of Hunter, she and
Gryffon sent out the spell, questing for his signature among all
the life-forces out there. They narrowed it down to the path he
would have taken to the tribe, following along it at inhuman
speeds. Their magic flowed across the land effortlessly, but there
was still no sign of him.

They made their way past the edge of Gelendan
and out into the Plains. The spell became harder as the wild magic
waned and ebbed against it, trying to tempt their tame magic to
join its chaos.

They pushed on. Layna started to feel beads
of sweat forming on her forehead and she squeezed Gryffon’s hand
for support. He squeezed it back and she felt a rush. And suddenly
there he was. Gryffon’s hand tightened even more on hers.

They could not call directly into his mind
like they could with one another, so instead they tried to nudge
his consciousness towards finding something reflective through
which they could speak with him.

A few moments later, a man’s face shimmered
and appeared on the stone before them. Natalya let out a gasp.

“Natalya?” Hunter asked in surprise and then
looked around and spotted Layna and Gryffon, “and Your Majesties.”
He bowed his head, one eyebrow raised curiously, but a look of
excitement on his face. “How did you find me?” he asked, but
interrupted himself before they could answer, “I need to talk to
you.”

“Where are you?” Layna asked, trying to get a
peek at his surroundings.

Hunter smiled sardonically. “I am currently
being held prisoner by the Myaamia tribe of the Forgotten.”

“You were able to find them again?” Layna
asked excitedly.

“Not exactly,” Hunter amended, “They found
me. The woman I came to save had already saved herself and was out
in the woods when I ran into her. Unfortunately, that’s when the
tribe caught up with her.”

“Do you know what they’re up to?”

“I do,” Hunter acknowledged with a sigh, “But
you’re not going to like it. While Princess Phoenix was in their
custody, they put a spell on her.”

“What?!” Layna exclaimed, her heart racing in
her chest. “What kind of spell, how could we not have detected it?”
She was feeling frantic.

“It won’t directly hurt her…” Hunter assured
her quickly, “But it was designed to sterilize anyone who has the
mark of the Dark King, or any who share his bloodline. And it was
apparently made to be contagious, just like a disease.”

“Sterilize people?” Gryffon asked
incredulously. “Why?”

“They are obsessed with ridding the world of
every trace of the Dark King. They even throw out their own
children if the mark appears.”

“That’s barbaric!” Layna gasped. “How can we
stop it?”

“I don’t know,” Hunter said, “and even worse,
they have Katya going after some stone that will make the spell
permanent.”

“Wait a second,” Gryffon interjected, “Katya?
As in our Katya?”

“Who is ‘your’ Katya?” Hunter asked.

“She’s the one who helped us with King
Nathair. We haven’t been adding her name to the official story
because she asked us not to, but if it is, she’s more than capable
of any task she is set to. If it is her success or failure that
will determine ours, we are in trouble indeed.”

“Yes, I believe it may be this same Katya,
though we did not have as long as I would have liked to have caught
up.”

“Caught up?” Layna asked, momentarily
distracted from the crisis.

“Yes, Katya lived with me as a child after
her mother died. I had thought her dead after the priests took
her.”

“Do you know how long this curse will take to
spread?” Gryffon asked.

“I do not,” Hunter said regretfully, “Lorcan
said that they’ve been talking about it as though it was a process,
and complaining that it was taking so long to take hold. But he
wasn’t really sure if it was the actual spreading that they were
talking about or simply how long they will have to wait to see the
results.”

“They won’t live long enough to see any
results!” Layna growled, uncharacteristically violent. When it came
to someone threatening her daughter, she wasn’t feeling
particularly forgiving.

Gryffon laid a calming hand on her arm, but
his eyes blazed with hatred as well.

“Katya doesn’t know what the spell is, or
that she’s delivering the stone that will make it permanent,”
Hunter added quickly. “They are holding my life over her head to
persuade her to help them. But if I can just talk to her for a
minute before she gives it to them, I can persuade her my life is
not worth it.”

Layna furrowed her brow. She disliked the
idea of sacrificing anyone, even in such a dire situation. His
words sparked her curiosity. In the time she’d known Katya, though
she liked the woman, she hadn’t seemed to be particularly attached
to people. It seemed more likely that she would leave a stranger to
his own devices and be on her way. What made this man think his
life so much more important to her that she would return with the
stone?

“You grew up with Katya, you said?” she
stated, and the man confirmed it with a nod. He would know about
her past, the past that Katya desperately wanted to find. That
would be worth delivering the stone to them to preserve. If she
knew the truth about what she was doing, it might overrule this
sentiment…after all, she had killed the man she thought she loved
for the good of the world, but…they would need to work quickly.
Layna did not want to risk the fate of the kingdom’s unborn
children on Hunter being able to convince Katya in time.

“We have been unable to get past an
enchantment in order to find the tribe, else we would send someone
to rescue you,” Gryffon said, regret in his tone.

“I understand,” the man acknowledged bravely
with a bow of his head. “Besides, they have promised to let us go
as soon as Katya returns,” he added cynically.

“We will have troops stationed in the
forest,” Layna promised, “if you are, by some miracle, able to
break out, find one of them and they will protect you from becoming
recaptured. And thank you.”

“I’m sorry I did not have better news, Your
Majesties.” He bowed his head to them once more. “Good luck.”

“And to you,” Gryffon said and they broke the
contact.

Layna and Gryffon walked Natalya silently
back to the room she now shared with Alina. Layna expected a
barrage of questions from the girl regarding this new information,
but she seemed as in shock as Layna felt.

When they made it back to their own suites,
she sunk down into a chair, staring straight ahead. She had failed
everyone.

“We need to lock down the palace,” Gryffon
said slowly, forcing Layna’s mind to wrap around what they had been
told. She tore her eyes from the spot on the wall that was becoming
burned into her retinas and looked at Gryffon. It just seemed so
surreal. After everything that had already happened to them, how
could this be?

She shook her head and got a hold on herself.
“Yes, yes of course,” she agreed. “We’ll need to make sure anyone
that has come into contact with Phoenix or with others who have are
contained. We don’t want this spreading any farther than it has
already until we know what exactly it is.”

“And we need to set every mage we have on
examining her right away to find how we could have missed a curse
on her. And, more importantly, how to break it.”

“How could this happen?” she asked Gryffon,
barely holding back tears. They had all been watching for a new
attempt on Phoenix, not looking for an already cast spell. And the
illness that had been spreading…no one had been around her for long
enough without coming down with it to notice anything unusual.
Layna again got the feeling that the sickness was some sort of
planned distraction, and she growled under her breath.

“Now we know what it is,” Gryffon told her
soothingly, with his relentless optimism, “and we can find a way to
stop it. The good news is that it doesn’t do anything immediately
dangerous to the baby’s heath, so that’s something. Also, if the
tribe felt the need to get this last stone to solidify the spell,
it means that they don’t think that the original spell is strong
enough. Which means we can break it. Don’t lose hope yet. We just
need to find a cure before Katya gives them the stone.”

“I suppose,” she conceded, wiping her tears,
“but I just feel so…” she didn’t know what word she was looking
for. Invaded, violated…She had gotten fairly used to having her
every move scrutinized by her peers and her subjects, but having
Phoenix be used in a plot because of her position felt so
wrong
.

“I know,” her husband said softly, “We just
need to take everything one step at a time.”

CHAPTER 13

Katya trotted into the forest and was almost
immediately surrounded by the Forest Guard. They escorted her to
the upper levels, and made straight for the Chamber. The Elders
were already assembled there, obviously having been alerted to her
approach by the tracking stone they had embedded into her.