Someone shook me; I felt the rocking motion, and I opened my eyes.
The dream vanished and the effects washed away. It was such an amazing feeling, and I looked up at Blake, who was sitting on my bed holding a cup of coffee.
“You should get going. King Caleb will be here soon.”
I nodded but covered my eyes with my hand.
“What is it?”
I shook my head. “Just a stupid dream, that’s all.”
“Dreams are scary, and they are amazing, but never stupid.”
I smiled at the way he said it and looked at him.
“Promise me we are going to free him, please?” For some reason I felt like crying.
“Elena.” He hugged me tightly. “Even if it’s the last thing I do, I promise.”
I hit him hard. “Don’t say that. We both have to make it. We have the missing ingredient.”
Blake raised his eyebrows slightly. A movement he didn’t really want me to see and replaced it with a smile.
“Okay, whatever you say –”
“What was that?” I interrupted him.
“What was what?”
“I saw that. You don’t think it’s the missing ingredient, do you?”
He looked at the ground.
“Tell me?” I knew I sounded slightly deranged.
“Elena.” He sighed.
“Tell me, Blake.”
“I don’t, okay.”
“Why can’t it be?”
“I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel like the missing ingredient.” He got up and paced slowly with his hand resting in his raven hair. He turned around and looked at me. “I don’t know. I might never feel like it will ever be the missing ingredient. It’s just so hard sometimes to take my own advice, okay.”
“Then we still need to find it.”
“No,” he said softly, and came to sit on the edge of my bed. “Not at all. It could be. I just want to be as sure as you are, and I doubt that I’ll ever be, that’s all. Wired differently, remember.”
I frowned as I got the feeling that he didn’t trust me one bit about Louie and his berries, which I was taking to Ralph the minute the berries started to show.
“You sure you can’t read my thoughts?”
He grunted. “I wish.”
It made me laugh again, and I sighed.
“Okay, we can look some more.”
“No, it has to be it. I just need to have faith too and trust that Louie’s berries are that poisonous.”
“Everyone says they’re the best.”
“Then who am I to argue?” He got up. “Get ready,” he said as he walked to the door. “King Helmut made it perfectly clear he wasn’t going to wait for anyone when Areeth came.”
I rolled my eyes and got up. I took sips of my coffee as I changed into my clothes for the day.
The days were going by so fast now, and I didn’t know if it was fate that wanted this reunion between me and my father to take place or if it was death that had gotten tired of me slipping through his clutches time and time again.
I had another cup of coffee at breakfast. I wasn’t hungry, and the coffee was enough.
At ten, the announcement came that Areeth was coming in fast on dragons and others in SUVs.
Everyone jumped up, Heico and Arianna included, and ran to see how they landed and pulled in.
I stayed in my seat.
I was the last one King Caleb wanted to see.
“He’s here. He’s going to fight.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t change how he feels about me,” I told Blake.
“Give him some time. He will change his mind eventually.”
I threw the napkin that was next to my plate at him and sipped on my coffee again.
Becky and George came back to the table.
Becky said, “Elena, Blake, you have to come and see.” She ran out again.
Blake got up and held out his hand for me. I took it and we both walked to the entrance, down the hallway, and toward the main door.
When we reached the outside it was just dragons upon dragons everywhere and riders sliding off their wings. At least fifty SUVs had pulled in, carrying many men.
A smile broke over my face.
“See why we needed Areeth?” Blake spoke softly.
I was speechless, and stared at this ocean of men and their dragons who were going to fight with us.
I laughed and looked at Blake, who was staring at the forest, which one could barely see with normal sight. You could tell it was a forest because of the dark cloud of trees tops, but I could only see it clearly with my enhanced sight.
I turned around to see what he was looking at, and heard something coming. Something big.
My heart started to pound as all sorts of things went through my mind.
Whoever it was, really must have been stupid if they’d decided to ambush us this day.
I jumped as a giant dragon, almost Blake’s size, flew out of the forest, making a screeching sound.
I looked at Blake and saw his smile, instead of reflecting the same worry I felt.
As the dragon neared, I saw feathers on his wings and a giant beak. It wasn’t a dragon; it was a gigantic bird, with gigantic wings and claws that could grab many people at once and rip them apart.
Everyone gasped as they stared at the giant eagle.
Then another giant creature followed after them, also airborne and I gasped as I realized what that was—a chimera. Another one followed, a bit smaller, and more birds of all sorts flew out.
Then the animals finally ran out of the forest, panthers, lions, wolves, tigers, you name it.
It was the shifters! They’d changed their mind. How?
The chimera and eagle landed, with the other chimera and birds landing after them.
The eagle was the first to change and I saw it was Isaac. A robe was chucked at him, and he pulled it on quickly.
He went over to Blake and shook his hand but it quickly led into a hug.
“You changed his mind?”
“I didn’t. King Caleb’s speech did,” he said.
Yuri changed and one of the Chimera’s disappeared. He had his own clothes inside a bag he carried in his claws and took out a pair of jeans.
I’d never seen so many naked people in my entire life and it was difficult to give them some sort of privacy. When Yuri was done, he walked straight over to me. Many scars ran over his torso, they were fighting scars. He reached me with a few strides and bowed. “Sorry I was so blind, princess. We are ready to follow you. To get your father.”
Everyone else changed and they took Yuri’s stance. All bowing.
“Please, get up,” I said to Yuri, and as soon as he did, I swung my arms around his neck. “Thank you.”
“I hope you have space for us too.”
I laughed as he said it, and the hug broke. “We will make a plan.”
King Helmut and Sir Robert were next in line, and shook Yuri’s hand, and after a while everyone shaking hands.
Blake stood with Isaac and I went over to them.
“So what do you think?” Isaac asked.
“Thought you were bigger to be honest,” I joked, and Blake laughed.
Isaac glared at me playfully as the rest of the band members reached Blake.
“You didn’t think you were going to have all the fun, now did you?” Ty said, slapping Blake on the arm.
I sighed, smiling like an idiot as I just stared at all these brave people who were going to fight.
Goran and his wyverns had no idea what was coming.
The shifters had arrived, and everything seemed a little brighter.
The briefing finally started. The cafeteria filled up with many of King Caleb’s troops and all of the heads of the shifters.
Emanuel stopped me as Blake and I were about to enter.
“King Helmut said I could.”
“And he gave me my orders.” His tone was serious.
My face fell. When were we going to know what the plans were? What sort of intel had they brought from Etan, and why didn’t they want me to know?
“He is going to give you and Blake a private update.” A smile broke over his face. “Besides, you don’t want to sit next to a shifter. They smell like wet dogs.”
Blake chuckled, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Follow me,” Emanuel said, leading the way to Sir Robert’s office.
We both entered and sat on the chairs right in front of Sir Robert’s desk, while Emanuel took his stand in front of the glass table that carried the forest layout at a smaller scale. I’d seen it when Sir Robert had wanted me to help him stop Blake from beating his record.
He took off the top and I got up from my chair. I hadn’t realized it was hiding a compartment.
I reached the table and saw small scale cities and big open land. It was a completely different kind of map. Another three-dimensional, small-scale map of Etan.
All the cities were here, or that what was left of them. Even the border of what was supposed to be the Creepers. I found Eikenborough and Sovereign quickly. Evan the farms of Alkadeen. There were other cities there that I’d never seen before.
I stared at the markets, the forest and watched how it connected with so many of the other forests. To be honest, it was one huge forest that grew in the form of something that reminded me of some kind of star fruit.
“This is all of Etan?” I asked without taking my gaze from the models.
“It’s all of Etan. We’ve been building it as we’ve received new intel,” Emanuel said softly.
He tapped on the glass at a building way at the top of the table, closer to him. “This used to be the Castle of Etan, your home.”
I stared at what was left of my home. It had seven wings; another was completely black. A cold finger ran up my spine as I realized that was the wing where my mother had died.
“We didn’t get much intel of the inside, but what we got was more than enough,” he told us. “Goran is still roaming this side, most of the time. He’s refused to enter the wing next to the west wing.”
“Why?” I asked. “What is so special about the west wing?”
He tapped on the glass right above the black, burned-down tower. “Your mother died in that wing.”
It didn’t make any sense. From what I gathered about Goran over the years, he didn’t sound like a superstitious kind of guy.
“And you want to make that the point of entry?” Blake didn’t sound so happy about that.
“The one closest to it is your safest chance.”
“I don’t like this, Emanuel.”
“You just need to kill the Saadedine. Goran will be left to King Helmut and Caleb. It has to be that way.”
“You sure they will be able to handle it, won’t he be…” Blake stopped, and for the first time I looked away from the map at him.
“They will do it,” Emanuel said in a tone that made it sound so definite. “The two of them insisted on it.”
Blake just stared at Emanuel, as if the two of them could read each other’s minds.
I looked them both. “What are you hiding?”
Blake glanced down at the box, and Emanuel looked at me. “You don’t need to know all the details, princess. It’s best that way. You need to concentrate on finding the Saadedine.”
I didn’t like this one bit. “Do you at least know where he is roaming?”
“No, but many of the townsmen said that they’ve heard his weeping sometimes from the Castle.”
“His weeping?” I asked.
“The dungeons,” Blake interrupted.
“Elementals are like wolves; at night they like to howl at the moon, well, in this case, weep. They call it a dragon’s cry. You don’t want to hear it. It will make any grown man cry with it.”
“And we have to kill it?”
“It’s evil.” Emanuel didn’t like my tone. As if they were my pets that I had to destroy. He wasn’t far off, though.
“Which I helped to hatch. Have all of you forgotten that? To me it’s not some monster, I will see Tornado, Dusty, Herby and Kirby, not what you guys know it as.”
“You gave it names?” Blake asked.
“They were only babies, beautiful innocent creatures that were betrayed to become this monster. So of course we did.”
“Elena.” Emanuel closed his eyes. “They aren’t the same babies anymore. You saw the visions. You know what the Saadedine looks like. If you don’t kill it, or hesitate, you will die.”
I looked at Emanuel. It didn’t sound like he knew about the foretelling Blake had. Not many knew. We wanted to keep it that way.
Silence lingered in the air for a few seconds.
“Do you understand what it is I’m saying?”
“Yes, I do. It’s them or us.”
“It, it’s not a ‘them’ anymore. It is a powerful and dangerous monster.”
I nodded and looked at the castle again. “Have any of them seen my dad? Is he still alive?”
“We haven’t gotten proof of life. It is why Helmut sent in the last troops just to find out if your father is still alive. We will know what they find out the day we go in.”
“So we are going in on this tower?” I tapped on the tower next to the one that had been burned almost to the ground. “How many do you have stationed inside?”
“A couple, and we can trust them. A distraction will be created to lead as many of Goran’s other men away from the castle. The rest will be given a sleeping drug around tea time,” he said, looking directly at me. I wasn’t stupid, this was war, and someone always died during war.
“Is that what you guys call it nowadays?” I was referring to death, and his lips curved upward.
“Everyone came through, Blake. The inside men gave us some of Goran’s DNA, and the scientist did the rest. They will give you one of the devices that can track Goran, but we don’t know if it will work inside. The last time we spoke to him, he was saying something big was going on with Goran. Like he was working on something private and was very secretive about it.”
“The last time. You haven’t gotten in touch with him since?”
“He is still alive. He’s just being watched like a hawk. This is Goran we are talking about, so we’ll take precautions, but we have a middle man and he gave us some info, not a lot though.”
Blake and I traded glances then looked back at Emanuel.
“He told us that your father’s men were stationed in Sovereign about eighteen months ago.”
“Eighteen months ago? It was the last time anyone saw my father?”
“They don’t bring him out at the fests either.”
“Then he could very well be…”
“I know what it looks like. We need to have faith that your father is still alive.”
They are stationed permanently at Sovereign.
“So my father isn’t with his men?”
“One of the others that came with from the other side said that it happened about eighteen months ago. They were moved from the castle’s dungeons to the Summer Castle in Sovereign.”
“Summer Castle?”
“It was your mother’s favorite home. She loved Sovereign.”
I always felt so stupid about the little things I didn’t know about my parents. These people were strangers to me. I had to save my father, I just had to.
“Goran won’t split your father and his men. He is trying to break the men through your father. Your father will be in Sovereign.”
“He wouldn’t move King Albert.” Blake looked confused.
“He would if the Saadedine is getting too strong for him to control.”
“Too strong?” I asked.
“It’s why we think he is in the dungeons. I told you that I had been in that dungeon a long, long time ago. There are strong enchantments built into those walls. It would take a huge war to break down those walls. Maybe not even. What?”
“Okay, that doesn’t make any sense. If he moved my father away from the Saadedine’s harm…”
Emanuel nodded. “A part of him is protecting your father and his men, Elena.”
I shook my head. “You didn’t see them, Emanuel. He is torturing them.”
“As harsh as it sounds, it’s just torture. He keeps them alive because eighteen years ago they were the same men he walked around with too. He knows these men. He knows their families. Deep down inside a part of him still cares.”
“Yeah, now that is something I can relate to.”
“Don’t say that,” I glared at Blake.
“All I’m saying is what Emanuel says make perfect sense to me. He will not kill your father. He will keep him alive to get the ultimate power that comes with finally breaking his men. He can’t do that if your father is dead.”
“Could Paul be right?”
“Goran isn’t here.”
“That’s not what I meant. Could he be right about Goran knowing that we are coming?”
“I don’t know. I kept a hawk’s eye on the first group that came in with me, but if he is, he has no idea what is coming his way.”
“No,” Blake said. “He doesn’t know. Goran hates that place.” Blake sounded so sure about this. “You didn’t hear the hatred he has for Etan now. He feels like a prisoner. If he knew we were coming, he would find a way to get through with the men, he would’ve been here already and we would’ve known by now.”
Emanuel sighed. “You sound like Helmut now.”
“Then you should believe it.”
“Okay, so we are back to square one, but it’s not a bad thing. Your father will be out of harm’s way when you two go in to kill the Saadedine.”
“Okay, so who is going to free his men?”
“Sir Robert asked for Samantha and Becky to go with him along with a small group of men.”
“Okay,” I said without thinking. They would be out of the danger zone, far from the castle. I knew why he wanted Becky. She was a kickass lightning wielder, and George one of the best damn trackers Paegeia had ever seen. Sammy, was an easier choice; he wanted her close to his side. Out of harm’s way.
“We are going to take a different route. By we, I mean Caleb, Helmut and myself, with Simon and two of King Caleb’s men.”
“You really trust Simon?”
“He was never with Paul and Nora, said they stopped to give him a lift to the castle when they went to sign up.
“When?”
“It was two months after Lucian died.”
“So she was right under our noses the entire time?”
He nodded.
“She was a Night Villain, how did she do that?” Blake wanted to know.
“You saw her too Blake, as a Night Villain.”
“I know, I just want to know how that was possible?”
“The stone she stole from Becky. It’s a very rare stone. It has many properties. One of them, well Chong said that it helped with guiding the Elementals’ essence through the Creepers, and it could also be used as a shimmer, a shield, so we would see a Night Villain whenever she transformed into a Hippogriff.”
“She could’ve killed us so many times.”
“She didn’t, because getting caught wasn’t the plan,” Emanuel said.
Blake blew out a gush of air.
Emanuel carried on. “Everyone has their part to play in freeing Etan. You should only care about the Saadedine.”
We nodded again.
“Have you guys found a way to break through the Creepers?”
“We have, but it needs something.”
“What?”
“Something that is immune to them.”
“Elena’s blood,” Blake answered.
“Not a lot, Blake, but her blood is the key to destroying all of them at once.”
“How?” I wanted to know.
He started telling us about the formula the scientists had been experimenting with for years. It was some sort of enhanced plant killer, but it had never had any luck with the Creepers. They believe if they mixed in my blood, the formula would work.
They would keep it contained in a form and attach it to small bombs, which I had to place in the middle of their core, stationed on either side of the Creepers. The bombs would explode releasing my blood on all the Creepers and they would die. We only needed one part open for the others to get through. They would continue to experiment on how to kill it completely.
I didn’t look forward to planting the bombs, but at least I knew Blake would be there with me.
The detonator would be kept in a safe place, and it would be set off around midnight. Eighteen years ago it started at midnight, it would end at midnight as well.
It was also a brilliant tactic, throwing Etan completely off from mid-day to immediate darkness.
“All the scientists need is my blood, and they still have a live sample from that time we destroyed the park.” Emanuel looked at Blake.
“Okay, so how are we getting into the Castle?” Blake asked.
“Trevor and Forest will be waiting for you, and I am sending Fred and Raymond with you guys. They will take you to a safe compound to spend the night and early in the morning they will go with you to the castle. They will stay at your side as long as they can.”
Blake nodded.
“As long as they can?” I asked. “Meaning till death do us part?”
“See you’ve got something of your father’s too. He was really good at piecing everything together,” Emanuel said.
“They will die for us?”
“Many people will die, princess. This is no ordinary rescue mission. It’s war all over again, and one that was pre-destined in our stars. Many Moon-Bolts have seen this war with different outcomes. We don’t know for sure what is going to happen, and I guess it’s up to the two of you. So many are counting on you to kill this son of a bitch.”
“Sure, why don’t you add more pressure, Emanuel?” I sniped and looked down at the layout of Etan. I could see through the corner of my eyes the smile tugging at Blake’s lips.
“You will get your orders about how to blend in and how to get into the castle as soon as you enter Etan, Blake.”
“That is it?” I asked, as Emanuel didn’t say anything after that.
“All you need to know, princess,” Emanuel said. “Besides, one of the scientists is waiting for that precious ingredient.”
If only it was precious enough to kill that son of a bitch too.
“Need me to hold your hand?”
“I can handle needles. Never had a fear of them.” I smiled.
Blake stayed behind as I had to almost run-walk to keep up with Emanual.
“My blood is really the ingredient that will make their formula work?”
“They are positive. They will only take a small tube of blood now, test it and then they will let us know.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
He didn’t answer.
“Answer me.”
“Then you have to let Blake go in alone after the Saadedine and take everyone else safely inside, princess.”
I just stared at him. “Over my dead body will I leave Blake to fight that thing alone. They better make it work.”
“And they will.”
