Fire Weaver (Fall of the Fey #1)

Chapter 27

It took two days to get to the base of the mountain. The relationship between the four of them was strained. Dresdan and Mira snapped at each other so much it was hard to believe that they could ever be friends even though they both talked fondly of each other to Mel. Both of them were weary of Lucius who felt no inclination to make them feel safe in his presence. He kept a steady pace, leading them the safest way that he remembered to the base of the mountain. Mel walked with him, content to stay within the sphere of silence Lucius created.

At the base of the mountain they rested, they had been walking since sunrise and now the sun was high in the sky. Lucius turned to them, backlit by the eerie woods they now had to walk through. 'Our choices are to push on through the day, which will probably mean we'll stay the night in the forest or we can rest and begin again tomorrow morning.'

Dresdan and Mira looked at each other.

'Which would you suggest?' Mel asked him.

'We are running against the time.' Lucius said meeting her gaze, 'it would be safer to start tomorrow but it would be smarter to continue on so we don't lose ground.'

'I vote to go through now.' Mel said.

'I need to get to my nephews.' Mira said reluctantly and Lucius took that for a vote to go through now.

'Democracy rules,' Dresdan observed as he looked reluctantly at the forest, 'let's get going.'

Lucius nodded and turned toward the forest. He looked over his shoulder, 'this place is ancient and we don't know for sure what lurks here. It would be best to move swift and silent and disturb as little as possible.'

The others nodded in response, waiting for his lead to start moving through the forest but he had more to say, 'don't lose sight of each other.'

He looked at each of them in turn before he started into the forest. Mel thought it was a lot of precaution to take for a person who believed it was a war camp that had been attacked. But like Dresdan said, a lot can happen in three hundred years.

***

Lucius accepted the role as leader to the others as he had done ever since he was a kid. Whenever one of his friends had wanted to do something they would turn to him as though waiting for his approval and everything he wanted to do everyone readily agreed to. Even his wife had looked to him for direction. He was a natural leader and this is a role that has never bothered him even when he was learning the rigours of court life from his father.

The only one who had ever led him was Jacoby. Lucius's jaw clenched at the thought. He had let the human lead him by the nose no matter what it was he wanted to do. They had caused so much trouble for everyone but everyone only ever blamed Jacoby. It was as though they couldn't see their Wolf Prince ever doing wrong.

When Jacoby started hanging out with demons, in his late teens, things had changed and he had turned into something dark. Lucius saw his friend disappear, replaced by something grotesque. Lucius had told Jacoby to stop whatever he was doing but like the stubborn fool he was, he didn't. Then Lucius had come from yet another meaningless court feud in one of his realms to find his parents and his little sister slaughtered. Jacoby's scent had been everywhere.

Lucius shook off the thoughts he didn't want to think about that now. He had a mission and people to protect through a forest that held the sense of something that watches. He felt a tap on his wrist and turned slightly to see Mel's worried orange and yellow gaze.

'Are you okay?' She asked quietly, the other two walked on without looking in their direction. As if they were trying to give he and Mel privacy without leaving their sight.