Page 58 of Enchanted Shadows (The Enchanted Kingdom #6)
O nly hours to the shore, I got more and more anxious. Traveling by sea didn’t bother me, my sea legs were well established these days. But after three nights of being on this ship, I was more than ready to be back on land. Hopefully for a while.
I had a honeymoon with my wife to look forward to, the Winter Solstice rapidly approaching. And then we would be back at training.
Though the end of the training session had been nothing but a whirlwind of chaos, I was rather looking forward to the routine of it all. It was better than putting out all these damn fires.
The sea breeze whipped against my face as I moved directions and walked to the other side of the boat. The worst part of these ships was that there wasn’t room to move around and stretch enough. Other than taking laps around the deck of the ship like I was currently doing.
“Hey,” Miles greeted as he joined me walking.
“Hey.”
“We should be home in three hours. Zaire will run patrols all week checking on things,” he reminded me .
I knew all of that, I just wanted off this damn ship. Needed off this damn ship. “I know.”
“You seem annoyed this morning, Commander.”
“I haven’t sparred since the last time we did, and Agria didn’t even put up a fight. I’m restless,” I agreed.
“What do you need?”
“I need ... my wife.” If that made me sound a bit desperate, so be it. I was desperate to get back to things just as they had been before I left.
Miles was quiet a moment before he said, “Not so fake anymore, huh?”
I let out a long sigh. “Not at all.”
“Training will be fun to get back into then,” Miles joked.
“I’m going to need some unbiased help, but I’m not sure that will be either you or Emric,” I added.
“What is that supposed to me?—”
He cut off entirely, as every bit of my power flared to life. And not because I’d rallied it. That could only mean one thing. Someone meant me harm. My power recognized a threat.
My eyes scanned the horizon but every which way I looked there was an endless blue ripple. No land, no other ships in sight. “Were you just thinking of kicking my ass?” I bit out to Miles.
“No. I mean yes. I always want to beat you, but not real harm.”
I believed him. If Miles wanted to kill me, he already would’ve.
My magic flared again, this time hard enough I paused my walking.
“What is it?” Miles looked around as he moved to guard me from an invisible threat.
I bit out, “What are the odds while we were docked that someone shrouded in shadow came aboard?” I looked for pockets of that impenetrable dark on the deck of the ship.
I found none, the sun was high, it was lunch time.
But that didn’t mean someone couldn’t be below deck hiding, someone who intended harm .
Miles signaled for Team One and pulled them in.
I let him take the lead as I was trying to listen to my body and figure out where the threat was coming from.
Miles’s voice commanded, “Search the ship. Search the entire damn ship. Something is wrong.”
An hour later, my power seemed to be appeased. Calmer. Yet we had searched every room of the ship, every nook and crate, and found nothing.
No one extra was aboard this ship. No pockets of darkness concealing someone.
Miles was barking orders at Team One about docking, getting everyone off the ship organized and in a hurry. Everyone was on high alert.
“What are the odds Calix or Damek were plotting my death so very specifically that my magic flared?” I asked Miles when he finished.
“Terrible. I can’t imagine this far away you would feel it.”
He was likely right. “But we were in the middle of the sea.”
“Exactly what has me bothered,” Miles agreed. He turned to look toward the very first speck in the distance which signaled land.
My magic reacted to only one other person’s. Jorah’s. I reached down our bond for what had to be the tenth time but found it entirely blocked off.
Jorah? I tried again.
Nothing. Maybe we were still too far away. I knew that Keir and Esta could speak no matter the distance, as could Jorah and Krew. But when Jorah went to Keir’s coronation in Dra Skor, we’d tested our kin bond. We lost the telepathy before they made it to Dra Skor .
“I can’t get Jorah yet,” I told Miles. I could see Wylan now, why wasn’t it back yet?
He stilled as he remembered my connection to Jorah. Realized that maybe something was going down at the castle we were unaware of. He yelled at a few people to use their Enchantment and get us moving faster, giving us an extra wind.
“Everyone hold on,” Miles yelled. “We need to get our asses ashore!”
As the docks finally came into view, I noted that Emric stood on the shore, three carts ready and waiting for our Enchantments to send them speeding up the mountain.
Miles and I exchanged a glance. That was bad news.
I didn’t know what transpired while we were away, and though I wanted to immediately use my power to carry me to the shore, I knew I might need it for whatever opponent awaited.
Still, I wasn’t about to wait for them to finish docking. I jumped over the side of the ship just as I did the balconies in Wylan and headed straight for Emric. Miles and Allen were on my tail doing the same.
As soon as I was before Emric, I saw his pity. The look in his eyes alone enough to haunt me.
I was too much of a coward to ask the words, so Miles had to do it. “What happened?”
“Calix is somehow here. He broke Bram out of the mountain,” he began explaining quickly. “A few hours ago, they attacked Kessara and Jorah, who were playing cards and having tea in Owen’s room.”
They’d just ordered their own deaths then. My fists clenched, fingernails biting into my palms, and I wished more than anything I had wings in this moment like Keir’s. So I could fly up the mountain.
“Kessara lured them away from Jorah and out the secret passageway. Jorah is rattled, but fine. She injured Bram, but both men took off after Kessara.”
Tension rolled tight throughout my neck and shoulders, every muscle readying for a fight. “ And where —is my wife?”