The Bound (Ascension #2)(44)

“I don’t know. No one. He found me in the woods.”

“He found you in the woods?” Avoca breathed out heavily. “I’m going to have to stay in the room with you, aren’t I?”

“What? No. I’m not going to go back out there. Avoca, don’t you know what happened? I found a pulse.” Cyrene looked around to see if anyone was listening. “Fire.”

“Fire?” Avoca asked in surprise. “Your first element was fire?”

“Yes, it was a heartbeat.”

“There hasn’t been a Leif with their first element as fire for two thousand years,” Avoca said. “Are you sure? What did it feel like?”

“It’s a strange story,” Cyrene said. Then, she recounted what had happened in the woods up until Dean had wandered in to retrieve his fallen buck.

Avoca stopped dead in her tracks. “You felt the actual heartbeat of the buck?”

“Yes. I think I picked up the pulse because it was so frantic. It drew me to him, and then I felt the pulse weaken and die just as he did,” Cyrene explained. “It was wonderful and painful. I’ve never cried like that before.”

Even thinking about it still hit her head-on. She had felt the life drain out of the buck. It was something she would never forget.

“No, no, no. That’s not fire,” Avoca said contemplatively. “I mean, it’s partially fire because there is a spark of fire in life. But it’s also water and air and earth. If you were strong in just one element, you would be able to feel them individually, but you’ve not mastered any. And you said it was overwhelming.” By this point, Avoca was speaking fast, as if trying to get all her thoughts out at once. “I’ve read about this. I’ve heard about things like this before. Things Leifs aren’t able to feel. Things long forgotten, long lost with the death of the Doma. So much loss.”

Cyrene put her hand on Avoca’s shoulder. “Slow down. What are you saying? I didn’t feel fire? That wasn’t the pulse?”

“No. I believe you felt spirit, the fifth element though not an element at all. I’ve not done enough research in the area to know for certain. I never thought I’d encounter a Doma, after all. But spirit is the essence of a thing. You effectively touched the deer, the essence of the deer.”

“That can’t be right. Can it?”

“I don’t know,” Avoca admitted. “Spirit users are rumored to be able to touch all four elements equally, as strongly as a normal user. I don’t know if that’s true. It is an inborn ability, an old ability, something I could never touch.”

“I don’t know what any of that means.”

“Neither do I,” Avoca said softly. “It gives me something to think about though.”

Avoca continued down the street, muttering to herself. At least she wasn’t yelling at Cyrene anymore, but Cyrene didn’t know what to think about this spirit thing. All she felt now was a renewed need to get to Eleysia and find Matilde and Vera. They had to be there. They had to know how to help.

Avoca and Cyrene rounded the corner to the inn and walked in the front door to complete and utter chaos. Orden, Ahlvie, and Ceis’f were standing there with their swords drawn, facing off with half a dozen Aurumian soldiers. Madam LaRoux was fluttering her hands about and shrieking. The serving girls were all huddled in a corner, crying.

Avoca quickly obscured Cyrene from view of the guards in case they were here for her.

“What in the Creator’s name?” Avoca whispered.

“Put down your swords,” a soldier commanded.

“You storm in here with swords drawn and expect us to lower ours?” Ahlvie asked. He snorted and cocked his head to the side, as if they were stupid.

“What is the meaning of all of this?” Orden demanded.

“We have a summons from King Iolair himself,” one man said. He took a step back from the other soldiers and sheathed his sword. He pulled a rolled parchment from a pouch at his waist. “I, Creighton Lanett Cavel Iolair, King of Aurum, Arrow of the Huntress, Guardian of the Eagle, do request the presence of Lord Barkeley Iolair of the Asheland Moors and keeper of the Halstedt provinces and his companions in the Draydon castle upon receipt of this summons.”

Lord Barkeley. Why did that name sound familiar? It was the estate they had first traversed when they left the boat from Strat. Orden had claimed he was not to be messed with. Why on earth would these men be looking for him?

“We don’t know of any Lord Barkeley,” Ahlvie cried. “So, you can all withdraw immediately.”

“Actually,” Orden said, lowering his sword and stepping forward, “we do.”

“What?” Ahlvie asked.

“I am Lord Barkeley,” Orden said. “Put away your weapons at once. You are causing a scene.”

The shock on Ahlvie’s face perfectly matched what was written on everyone else’s in the room.

Orden is a Lord? And not just a Lord…an Iolair? Related to the King? What alternative world did I just step into? This surely had to be a joke.

“A Prince?” Ahlvie spat. “You’re a Prince?”

Cyrene couldn’t believe this. This man had helped her when she had passed out from a Braj, trekked across Aurum with her, saved her from arrest, broken out a prisoner, bribed a sailor, and all the while, harbored a wanted fugitive and allowed himself to be seen as a kidnapper. This man was a Prince!