Page 97 of The Broken Prince

The guard ran off.

I moved into the deliberations room, where a large table sat with enough chairs to accommodate twenty people. I didn’t sit. I chose to stand, to eye the door and wait for Jeremiah to walk through so I could attack him with a million questions.

Mother entered first, dressed impeccably because she was always up before the sun rose. And then Harlow entered, her eyes sleepy like she’d been pulled out of a deep slumber. She was dressed in leggings and a wrinkled sweater, like that was the quickest thing she could find. “What’s happened?”

I ignored my daughter, waiting for Jeremiah.

Jeremiah entered a moment later, his eyes bloodshot like mine, terror etched into the hard features of his face.

I intended to fire off a million questions, but now that I saw his expression, I didn’t want to know what he had to say.

He walked right up to me. “M’lord—”

“I don’t have time for titles and diplomacy,” I snapped. “What happened to my brother?”

He didn’t bow or fold his hands at his waist. He stood there, slightly out of breath because there hadn’t been time to pause on his long journey. “We found ruins of a fallen civilization, farther east away from the snow. We stopped to investigate because Ian believed it could provide clues about Palladium. Nightshade said he heard something, something coming from the ground. A woman appeared out of nowhere and asked us to come with her. Both Ian and I assumed it was a trap, so we remained where we were. Nightshade said the noise was getting louder, and the woman told us to run. Then they appeared, out of nowhere, the demons you’d spotted before. Ian and I tried to run, but I was the only one who made it. Nightshade tried to free him…but Ian ordered him to flee.”

Keeping a straight face as I listened to that tale was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do…almost as hard as when my wife had told me our daughter had been taken. I had to be strong for her, and now I had to be strong for my mother…for everyone else who stood in the room with me. “What happened to him?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“You could see from the sky. What happened?”

“When the demons were momentarily distracted by Nightshade, Ian ran. I took my eyes off him for a second to watch the demons turn and pursue him…but then he was gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“I lost track of him.”

“How? Were you near the woods?”

“No. It was a barren place.”

“Then explain to me how that’s possible.”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Explain it to me.” I stepped forward, getting in his face like he was a demon himself. “You don’t just lose sight of someone. If there are no buildings and no trees, then where the fuck did he go—”

Ivory placed a hand on my arm, and that was all it took to silence me. “Jeremiah, if what you say is true, then how would it be possible to lose track of him from the skies? Are you sure there isn’t something you aren’t telling us?”

“Steward Ian is an honorable man whom I’ve had the pleasure to serve,” Jeremiah said. “I want to find him as much as you do. But that is the full picture as I know it. I never saw him again, and perhaps that’s a good thing, because that means the demons probably didn’t either. Perhaps he’s still there.”

“The woman.” Harlow spoke from where she stood next to her mother. “Maybe he went with her.”

“Went with her where?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Harlow said. “But she came from somewhere, right? She warned them about the demons. She must live there and know how to evade them. Perhaps she saved Uncle Ian.”

I stared at my daughter, trying to piece that story together.

“Where’s the one place they wouldn’t look?” Harlow asked. “Underground…”

“But they’re from the earth,” I argued.

“Exactly,” she said. “Which is why they wouldn’t look there.”

Ivory looked at me. “It’s possible.”