Page 1 of Forgotten Arcane (Broken Ashes #6)

Neith

T he vampire stares at me, “I’m sorry, I do not understand the saying. Goody?”

“Yeah, I was being sarcastic,” I reply with a sigh.

It’s always a bad sign when you have to explain to a supernatural what sarcasm is. It suggests that a lot of things are likely to get lost in translation, and in situations like these, clear communication is key. No more sarcasm for me for the moment then.

“What exactly do the Elders want?” River asks, his eyebrow raised and an unimpressed look on his face.

“Fuck that,” Coen says, moving closer to me. “A better question would be who the fuck are the Elders? I’ve never heard of them.”

River points at Coen, “He’s right, answer that one first.”

“The only Elders that I know are the Reaper Elders, and we are absolutely not going anywhere near them,” Raiden adds firmly, leaving no room for argument in his tone.

The vampire nods, “A fair question, the Elders are the eldest supernaturals, chosen to assist and provide guidance in extreme situations. Every race of supernatural is represented by an Elder. Although you will not meet all of them, there are far too many. So you only meet the ones deemed best to help you in your situation.”

My eyes narrow. Why does the phrase ‘your situation’ sound suspicious? Oh, I know, because it’s coming from an unknown vampire that appeared out of nowhere and is insisting that I go with him.

Because that’s not strange or suspicious at all.

“Why have we never heard of them?” Griff demands.

“They like to keep their existence on a need-to-know basis. It’s more peaceful that way.

There was a time when everyone knew about the existence of the Elder Council, and as you can imagine, it got rather busy.

The amount of supernaturals that would come to the Elder Council for trivial matters was getting out of hand, so they decided to cut back on the easy access.

Eventually, supernaturals forgot that they existed, and only when a new Elder was chosen, or the need arose for the Elders, would a supernatural find out about them, as you are now,” the vampire explains. “Now, shall we go?”

I’m actually surprised at the amount of information that he just gave me. It’s been my experience so far that I have to pry the information out of people if I want an actual answer, and yet he gave us more information than we technically need.

I’m a suspicious person, life has taught me to be that way, so my immediate reaction is not to be grateful, but rather question why.

Is he being so honest now to get us to trust him, so we’ll go with him? Most likely, but is that for a good or bad motive? Or is he giving us lots of information now so that we don’t ask any more questions because there are bigger things that he’s hiding that he doesn’t want us to know about?

I think that’s most likely the reason why he’s been so forthcoming with answering our questions.

I raise my eyebrow and ask, “Go where exactly?”

“The Elders have their own realm. I promise that we mean you no harm, in fact we want to help,” his eyes move to my wings, and he frowns slightly, “it won’t even take that long, I will have you back here in ten minutes.”

“Lucius,” Ed interrupts, looking decidedly more ruffled than he was when we first arrived in the chamber.

The vampire looks over at Ed and raises his eyebrow at his appearance, “Ed.”

Ed clears his throat, “While I understand the urgency to see the Elders, I need to point out that they still need to receive their extra gifts.” Ed raises his eyebrow as Lucius opens his mouth to argue, “You and I both know that the Gods beat the Elders. Or do you not mind pissing the Gods off?” Ed smirks and adds, “Again.”

Lucius winces and immediately snaps his mouth closed to stop himself from arguing further.

“Holy shit, did you say Gods?” I blurt out.

Ed glances at me and smiles, “Yes, who else did you think would give you all your extra gifts?”

I frown, “I guess I hadn’t really thought about it. I was just focusing on getting through the Choosing and not dying.”

Lucius sighs, “You made your point, Ed, can we please get on with it. You know as well as I do that the Elders aren’t patient.”

“I would just like to point out that if it really will only take ten minutes of our time to have this discussion with the Elders, then the Elders could have come here and had the discussion with us, and it would have been a lot quicker and easier,” I point out.

“Actually, she makes a really good point. We’re exhausted and have some things that we need to deal with, not to mention we’re going to be weak after we’ve had the magic transfer from the Gods.

” Van starts, “I’m not going to allow my family and team to go to an unknown realm to meet unknown supernaturals.

Not only that, but they’re a group of supernaturals that we have never heard of before.

” He levels Lucius with a look, “Would you?”

Lucius looks at Evander as if he is assessing him, and then his eyes drift over the rest of us as well.

“He’s right, they aren’t going to be up to go to the Elder Realm, not right now, and if it’s really that important, then a meeting can be set up at a later date, surely,” Ed agrees with Van.

“You know what they’re like, they aren’t exactly in touch with things anymore.

A side effect of having cut themselves off from the majority of supernaturals.

It might be wise to remind them about what the Choosing entails, and what these young supernaturals have already been through in a week.

Is it really necessary that they travel to the Elder Realm for a ten-minute conversation? ”

Lucius sighs, “I will see what I can do. I know that the chamber will go into lockdown while they receive their new magic. I will be back after it releases. I can’t promise anything though.”

“Thank you,” Evander replies, and Lucius looks vaguely surprised.

He nods once and then disappears in the same flash of light that he arrived in.

“Well, shall we get on with it then?” Ed asks. He clicks his fingers and the chamber rights itself, quickly becoming as good as new.

“Whoa,” I mutter.

Ed grins, “It’s not the first time the place has been destroyed. After the first dozen times of fixing it, I learnt some shortcuts that made it a lot quicker and easier to do.”

“That’s pretty handy,” Raiden agrees.

I open my mouth to ask if he could teach me, or at least if he could teach me how to fix the holes in the plaster like he did because, let’s face it, I shoot holes in the walls all the freaking time, but then I realize that one, that it is probably an inappropriate time to ask, and two, even though I have wings now . . .

Holy fuck I have wings now.

Anyway, even though I have wings now, I have no idea what magic I have and what my magic is able to do.

I might not be able to use the same spell that Ed uses to fix things.

Magic does really work like that, there’s not really a one size fits all.

Although you can get ready-made spells that work for most things, so maybe it’s one of those that he uses?

As I think about it, that place of magic within me that used to be small stirs, and my eyes widen slightly at how much bigger it is now.

I always had the sense that whenever I did call on it, and it helped me, that it was only a small amount of magic that was coming through, but I had no idea just how true that was.

There is a lot that I need to explore about my new magic, and of course, my wings.

I am somewhat grateful that the voices seem to be behaving the same way as they always have done.

At least they are for now. There is already so much change that I’m going to have to wrap my head around that, if the Voices started to sing show tunes or something, I might just lose it completely.

Although that would be pretty fucking cool.

I force myself to pull away from my magic, I need to focus on the here and now.

“Why am I so nervous about getting our new magic?” Raiden asks.

“That’s perfectly normal,” Ed reassures him. “I’ll explain what will happen, which should help ease some of your nerves.”

“Thank you,” Raiden replies with a grateful smile.

Ed suddenly smacks himself on the forehead, and we all share a look as I wonder if we’ve somehow broken him. I know we haven’t realistically been in his presence for very long, but we’ve sort of done a lot of damage in that time. I know he fixed it, but still.

“Are you okay?” I ask him with concern.

He looks slightly embarrassed as he nods and replies, “Yes. Sorry, sometimes it takes a moment for my brain to catch up with my actions, and usually I’ve already done it by then.”

“I do that,” River replies sympathetically, making me smile.

Ed smiles at River, and then becomes serious again.

“The reason why I did that is because I forgot to tell you that, as you are now a Warrior Bonded team, a bond mark will appear on you that joins you all. This is usually on the inside of your wrist and is a way to prove to those throughout all of the realms that you are legitimate and a true Warrior Bonded team. As you can imagine, there have been supernaturals that have tried to take advantage of the perks and the power that come with being a bonded team.”

“Yeah, I can see that happening,” Reed nods, not looking surprised by the information at all.

Ed frowns, “There have been groups of supernaturals who have tried to get paid extortionate amounts to protect someone because they’re a bonded team when they aren’t, and other occasions where they have demanded a certain kind of treatment using the excuse that they are a Warrior Bonded team, so they therefore deserve it. ”

“We’re not really going to be treated that much differently, are we?” I ask with a frown.

Ed nods, “Yes. You will, but how you respond to it is up to you.”

“Do we have to tell other supes that we’re a bonded team?” Coen asks. “By that I mean is it a requirement?”