Reclaimed (Shadow Beast Shifters, #2)(90)

“Now we must correct the power balance in this world,” Dannie said, dusting her robes off. “Mera and Shadow are the two able to return the royal rule to its correct position. Cristell, I’ve been trying to keep an eye on her, but her energy keeps morphing and changing. I don’t know what you’ll find when you return to the compound.”

It was clear she hadn’t been back there since the day her son had been stolen, too weak to do much more than search for a way to return him. She’d said it had taken near two thousand years to get the Nexus to produce my energy, and honestly… that was dedication. A true mother’s love for a child.

“Where the fuck is Ixana?” Shadow asked suddenly. “She’s disappeared and she has my bloodstone.”

Dannie’s eyes turned murky, which was always a bad sign. “She is gone. And…” She focused on me. “Can you feel your creatures, Mera?”

Flames licked across Shadow’s arms, his face set in angry lines. Ignoring this, I tried to feel the creatures in my bond, and… they were still there, but it was weak. Much weaker than I’d expected. “The connection is fading,” I choked out. The power of this Nexus had hidden it, but now that I was focusing my attention on the bonds, it was obvious.

Shadow rumbled. “Wait here,” he said to me. “I’ll look into it.” He disappeared into a blur of shadows, and I tried not to freak out.

“Can you ever forgive me, Mera?” Dannie asked, her voice flat. “I dragged you into this war. Without your permission.”

“You did it to save Shadow,” I said, keeping my true feelings hidden away. I got it, but it stung that the one adult I’d thought had given a shit about me had only been interested in what she could use me for.

“At first, yes.” She surprised me with her honesty. “But all too quickly, I loved you. I even contemplated figuring out a way to stop you from taking this journey. Risking you didn’t feel worth it, even to save the realm from its ultimate end.”

“It’s dying?” Angel cut in, surprised. “There has been no talk of that.”

Dannie snorted, and it was so ungoddess-like that she once again reminded me of Earth Dannie. My weird, eccentric friend. “Since the door was barred, all of the realm’s drama has remained internal. No one would know, and it’s only those who live here who see the suffering. The balance is so far skewed, I’m not sure it can ever be righted.” She gestured out to the dead lands again. “This is not only happening here. It’s happening everywhere.”

We’d seen it in the lava fields, where the decay had been so much more widespread than Shadow and Angel had expected.

“They need Shadow to take his place,” Angel mused. “It has to be one of the biggest factors in this imbalance. Cristell not only sucked up ten times her share of power to fill his role, but that much again to keep the spell on the door. She’s killing this world.”

“She is,” Dannie confirmed. “But her power, or the balance of power as you’ve noted, is so far tilted her way, I’m afraid it might be too late.”

“And what happens if this world falls?”

Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. We could evacuate as many as we could and then let the assholes suffer in the destruction of their own creation.

“It’s an essential part of the Solaris System,” Angel told me. “To lose one could result in the loss of all. There would be a long-reaching impact that we have no idea of.”

Dannie nodded. “Oh yes, not to mention that any creature born of the energy here, including you and your mists, would perish. We cannot survive without this realm.”

“Okay, we must do this,” I said, slumping as more energy seeped from me.

Something was going on with my creatures; I needed to get to them and figure out what was wrong, but I would wait for Shadow to return.

Dannie clapped her hands. “My child deserves his birthright. I lost so much when we were betrayed, and my mate…”

My chest tightened as I finally figured out why she’d bailed on the compound and never returned. “Shadow’s father is dead?”

She nodded. “Yes. Cristell forged the bloodstone into a weapon, this long staff. She used it to destroy any who stood in her way. None of us were ready.”

A staff? Angel and I exchanged a glance. Ixana had said she’d taken the stone as soon as Shadow had been betrayed, so how had Cristell used it as a weapon?

I was about to ask Dannie more about the day Shadow was betrayed, but before I could, the beast himself burst into the clearing. “She’s gone,” he roared. “And she took the creatures.”

It had been what I feared, even as I’d held onto a weak hope that there was another explanation. Dannie was on her feet in an instant, and as her fury grew to match her son’s, flames spun out of control from them both. “I knew it,” she seethed. “I never liked or agreed with their pairing, but my mate insisted that it was a solid match. A strong union between royal families.”

Shadow didn’t seem surprised by this. “She’s no match for me. I saw that from the first moment we reconnected here.”

“What is she doing with my creatures?” I snapped, needing them to get to the point.

“She betrayed us,” Shadow said softly. “She’s either working for Cristell or planning to use the creatures to take her down. Either way, she used our power to get what she wanted, and now she’s gone.”