“We couldn’t keep too much here or we’d worry it would expire,” Raven explains while it’s just the two of us. “We have basic stuff but nothing for fighting battles.”
He’s so calm about this. How can he be so calm?
When I ask him, Raven gives me a small smile. “Don’t mistake composure for ease. I’m worried too.”
“You don’t look it.”
Raven sits down with me and takes my hand. “I’m worried for you all the time. I worry for North and Cain all the time, too.”
“How do you get used to it?”
Raven shrugs. “You realize that they worry about you, too. You realize that this is what it means to love someone. You’re never going to be a hundred percent certain that they’re okay or that things won’t go south. But if you don’t accept that risk into your life, then you lose out on the possibility of the reward.”
“Careful,” I tease him, even as I swallow down the lump in my throat. “I’m going to start thinking you’re wise or something.”
“We can’t have that,” Raven agrees with a small smile. He squeezes my hand and his face grows serious again. “That’s why we’re doing this together. Even if it’s not the best timing, even if we don’t have all the planning and strength that we should, being together is better than nothing. At least we’re all with each other.”
I finish eating up, because I know Raven’s not going to let me leave the table until I do and besides, the food’s delicious. Cain and North return with our supplies, the glamour that Cain employed fading as they enter the bunker.
“Not the best stuff on short notice,” North says, “but we were able to call in a few favors.”
The idea of them calling in favors for me still makes me feel a little bad. Not bad, no, that’s not the right word, but something like that. Uncomfortable, would probably be the best word. There’s a part of me that still isn’t used to people doing things for me, going out of their way for me, and even though now I love them as they love me, I can’t silence the part of me that worries that I’m not worth their devotion and that I’m just leading them to their deaths.
My vision haunts me. I’m leading an army in it, but I’m alone, standing separate from everyone else. I’m not with my mates. I can’t see them anywhere.
I’m trying to stay calm about it and not panic. The men have said that this vision might not even happen. But fae visions always come true, or so I’ve been told, and I can’t stop worrying. Every time we go up against Roanac, I wonder if this’ll be the thing that takes them from me, and I have to keep going it alone the way I did after my parents died. I don’t know if I could survive a loss like that a second time.
“Let’s get geared up,” North orders.
I’m glad that I finished eating before they got here, or I never would’ve been able to finish my meal. My nerves are jangling inside me.
We make sure that we all have our things on us, that North has his knives, and we all have our healing potions, and so on, and then Cain helps me to open up a portal to where Roanac was.
I still feel a bit weird. But I’m not going to tell my mates that. It would be pointless, honestly. We don’t have the time to sit around while I go back to feeling like normal, and besides, I suspect that I won’t ever feel back to normal until Roanac is gone. This newfound power that he awakened in me, is it ever going to stop? Not until he does. He has my blood. That must mean that we’re joined somehow. I can still feel this odd pain, and I don’t think it has to do just with my recovery.
No, there’s no time to waste and it’ll be useless to try. We have to stop Roanac now.
I think about Roanac, and picture him on that island, with the rocks that ooze magic and the stormy seas that rage around him. I can almost feel like I’m there, like I’m getting an echo or a ghost of what he’s experiencing.
I’m still not super experienced in creating portals, or using my fae magic in general, even though I’m now apparently super powerful at it. Cain helps to direct me so that I can open the portal properly, because all the magical power in the world doesn’t matter if I do it improperly.
“The portal won’t open,” I tell him, struggling.
“Just clear your mind.”
“It’s not my mind, something’s stopping me. Every time I try it’s like I’m trying to stick two magnets of the same polarity together.”
“Roanac’s probably stopping it,” North points out. “Or the island itself has such a magic that you can’t portal to it directly. Either way we’ll have to settle for somewhere nearby.”
I redirect the portal to another island close by, and that portal opens just fine.
We step through, bracing ourselves, only to step out onto a beach.
“There.” I point straight ahead.
In the distance we can see the other island. From here, it looks like just an ordinary collection of rocks. Nothing magical about it, at least not to the naked eye. But I canfeelthat’s the one. Even from here the aura of magic is strong.
“How do we get over there?” Raven asks.