One Between the Stars

Chapter 44

 Nimue knew something had changed. She felt it like a shift in the air pressure, like someone had just sent an electric charge through the room. Her scalp tingled, as if her hair were standing on end.

She had been able to slip away long enough to send word out that she needed a favor of Merlin. Over the years, she had accumulated many favors, but this one was perhaps the most tedious to call in. She'd spoken with Merlin before, and found the old man to be less than spectacular, for all the praise her mother gave him. She had doubted that she would ever require his services again, until the arrival of Ionia and Wes.

The two had been an object of curiosity to her ever since her mother had shown up with them a few days ago. It had taken her a long time to figure out how they had even found the planet in the first place, given the heavy cloaking magic Merlin maintained about the planet's orbit.

Nimue had never pried into another's mind more than necessary. Often times that meant no more than they were willing to share verbally, but for this reason, she had gone a bit farther in the minds of Ionia and Wes, or so he liked to be called, Carson.

They had lost a friend recently, but something in her senses told her the friend was not dead, just...gone. It was near impossible to get a straightforward image of events and memories belonging to a person, so she could not see the entire context of what lie in their minds, but she could see one glaring detail.

He or she was connected, in some way, to this place.

It saturated their minds, especially Wes's, that he or she belonged here, that everywhere they turned they were reminded of that friend. The only logical conclusion she had come to was that he or she must have been a warlock. Which made sense as to why they were able to come here; it was possible that the warlock had been able to find a way to the planet and recorrect the gravitational pull that would veer them off-course every time they tried to head toward Caerleon. She wondered how such a thing was possible, that while it was plausible for a warlock to find Caerleon on his or her own with the aid of magic, she had sensed that the presence of this friend had long been gone by the time they had landed.

She was still wondering this, and it disturbed her, because it could mean bad things for the security of this nation planet. So over the past few days, she had helped Wes and Ionia, not just because her mother would hate it and she hated her mother, but because she needed to see more. She had to know more.

And it had gone well, until that night, after she had confirmed that word of the audience request had gone through with Merlin, and Wes and Ionia were nowhere to be found.

She smiled and waved at passing patrons, ignoring the strange glances she received, trying not to tear through the entire palace to search for the two who were keeping their plan tightly packed in place.

It was perhaps hours before she saw them enter through the glass doors that led out into the gardens.

Nimue stopped in her tracks. Oh no....She could always tell when a two people liked one another. And the feelings between these two had been unspoken for the duration of their stay here. She had even teased Ionia a bit about it, and expected it to remain that way, because she could see in both their minds that there was something keeping them apart, something that kept them from taking off in the middle of the night and never being seen again. She suspected it had to do with the reason they were here, with whatever it was they had to speak to Merlin about.

But now...

There was no mistaking it. They were not touching, they were not even standing near one another, but when she looked into each of their minds, she could feel the honeyed glow that covered them both, could almost smell the flowers in the garden, could almost feel the desire that was held between the two in their hearts.