Warrior of the Moon

25

One second Serena was picturing Lake Muiress, and the next, she was being tugged away to Lilia's Basin.

She figured it had something to do with Xyris' hand in hers, his magic guiding him and thus pulling her along as well. There was nothing she could do to warn the others before she felt the sand beneath her that signaled they had made it to their destination.

Xyris started running away from her immediately, and she cursed, scrambling up after him.

"Stop it, Xyris! Slow down!" she commanded.

He slowed, but he did not stop. "I can't control it, Majesty. But something terrible is happening... or something terrible has happened..."

Serena heard splashing sounds from behind her and turned to see Will climbing out of the water with Nahla at his side.

"I heard him talking about Arrowmere," the nymph stated in response to Serena's confused glance. "This is the closest water source to the town; as far as our magic can take us."

When Xyris kept moving, Serena just scowled and pointed a finger in his direction. A lasso of magic wrapped itself around his form, and though he struggled slightly, he was no match for it as he was dragged back to their small group.

"Hammel?" she asked, not even turning around to look at the others.

"At the lake to watch over the forces for now, Majesty."

Serena nodded. At least somebody was there that she could trust. She might not know her great-uncle well, but he had been living in Lake Muiress for who-knew-how-long, he had trained the Realm's armies, he had taught her father how to fight, and he was trusted enough by the heavens to be there with the spirits of the rest of her ancestors at her coronation. She would not live in fear of her family; she had little enough of that as it was. She would trust them until they gave her reason not to.

Xyris came to a halt beside them, but she kept the magic wrapped around him. "You don't know what's going on at Arrowmere, just that it's something bad?" she clarified, and Xyris nodded. She looked at the others, eager for their thoughts on this. She had never heard of anything like the power Xyris seemed to have.

Nahla did not hesitate. "You cannot ignore the magic of the heavens when it summons somebody this way, Majesty." A pointed glare at Xyris. "This man is fortunate that it gave him another chance after he ignored it the last time."

Will folded his arms. "But if we're assuming this is another group of Infernals, what are they doing in Arrowmere? That's nearly as far north as Estrell. If there are some up there it means that they must have come from--"

"Even farther north," Serena finished, nodding mostly to herself. "An army in Azure, and an army in Perpetuum. That's possible, isn't it? Pevana was working with them. Maybe the whole kingdom was on her side after all."

"It would not matter if they were on her side if she ordered them to fight, Majesty," Nahla pointed out.

"To give that order this recently would mean she survived the castle's collapse," Serena mused, feeling her expression darken even as she said it. "Which would be rather annoying, seeing as we lost plenty of good people that day, I'm sure."

"We're just speculating," Will cut in. "It's possible that the Eternals are just keeping to themselves and Celestine just had another army cooped up somewhere else. She could have even more, too, if that's the case. The Realm has plenty of places she could set up camp where she wouldn't be noticed for a good while. What seems most important, right now, is that we get to Arrowmere and see what's going on."