Chapter 18

The face Lyv made as she finished the last of her slice of cheesecake was not the usual one. Brows furrowing and lips turned down in a frown, she shot up from her chair and spun around, eyes searching for the person heading their way before he even rounded the corner into view.

Jai strode forward, practically lifting people out of his way, with fierce determination on his face.

"What's happened?" Lyv demanded once he was within earshot.

"Elys," he answered. "Eamon and Archer came back from training without him. Said they were sword fighting and he got caught on the arm with a blade. But it wasn't just because of that. He'd gone into a vision and they couldn't get him out for almost a solid minute. Once he was, though, he practically fled on horseback. They found him later at the Raven, but he wouldn't talk, wouldn't even acknowledge them. They came to find me after. I knew you would want to go to him, too, so..."

"So, let's go," she finished for him, stepping to his side as she laced their fingers together. "Now. You know how he gets with his intense visions, locking everyone out as he sorts through them himself."

"And you know how he always ends up coming to us."

Lyv nodded, then looked back at Cleo. "You're coming with us."

She just shook her head, looking between her cousin and her mate. "I...no. You two go. Whatever happened with Elys, my questions can wait until after he's sorted through everything."

Jai held out his other hand for her. "Eamon said when Elys was in his vision, he said your name. So, you're coming with us."

Cleo froze, staring at his hand. With her name coming up, was Elys's vision something to do with what she wanted to ask him about the Lady in White? Could he have seen something so horrific he had to drown his sorrows and try to forget?

She took Jai's hand.

The closer they got to the tavern, whispers surrounded them about the Seer of Ikreus. How he'd raced through the streets of Ayveri just a few hours before, how he'd practically slammed through the door of the Raven, and how he demanded the strongest alcohol to come to their regular table as soon as he finished a tankard. Usually, Elys wasn't one for alcohol, but whatever this vision had been of seemed to have tipped him over the edge.

And it made a nervous knot form in the pit of Cleo's stomach as her hand tightened on Jai's arm with every step.

"...don't know what it was about," Jai had been saying to Lyv. "Like I said before, Cleo's name was mentioned. Then something about Des...and darkness."

Lyv let out a whimper. "Jai, you don't think..."

"I...I don't know, princess," he told her, kissing the side of her head. "We knew it would happen. We've always known."

They didn't even have to specify as to what that was either.

When Dessa was conceived, Lyv had dark magic within her. It had been the same for Cleo and Adeena when their mother Corliss became pregnant with them. But while Cleo and Adeena had immediately displayed how their dark and light magic was within them, Dessa's had somehow stifled both it and her light magic. She had always thought of it as a curse, not having magic, but Lyv and Jai had told her otherwise. Her magic would appear someday, though they never knew as to when. The only spark she'd ever shown was on the day she was born, and it snowed in both their world and in Laria.

Then again just a week before when Cleo came and she and Elys felt it stir within her.

And maybe...maybe the day it fully came to the surface was about to come.

As soon as Jai pushed open the door of the Raven, silence swept through the tavern. Conversation slowly started to pick up once again as the three of them moved through the early dinner crowd, but the eyes that followed went from them to the one person sitting in their regular booth.

Three empty tankards sat at the end of the table as Elys finished off his fourth, slamming it back down on the wood, fingers still curled around it. He motioned for another to the bartender behind the bar.

Lyv was the one to turn and shoot that request down with one look.

"No fair," Elys slurred as Lyv moved into the booth beside him while Jai and Cleo sat on the other side.

"That's enough, Elys," she told him, taking the empty tankard from his grasp. She moved it with the others. "Water. That's all you're getting now."

And as if on cue, a barmaid came with a pitcher of lemon water, one Elys immediately reached for and gulped down a quarter of its contents before he even took a breath. The motion allowed for all three of them to see the cut that sliced diagonally across the top of his arm. Blood stained the leather of his slashed jacket, the wound it revealed still oozing and bright red.

"You didn't let anyone look at that?" Lyv choked out, her hands reaching out and automatically glowing with healing magic before she even laid a finger on him.

Elys tried to pull his arm free, but the grasp she had on him was too strong, especially when he was drunk. "I'm fine, Lyvi."

"Quit being a martyr and let me heal you, you big baby."

It didn't take her long to close the wound, clear up the blood, and even stitch his leather jacket back together with magic. Lyv must have put a little something extra into the magic that swept through him, too, since Elys seemed to snap out of his drunken daze. Reality quickly hit him, especially when he looked at the three of them with clear, mismatched blue eyes.

"What happened, kid?" Jai asked him after Lyv finished and he let a few moments of peace pass. "Eamon and Archer found me a little while ago, said you'd..."

And then, with a shaking sigh, Elys leaned against Lyv's shoulder as she wrapped an arm around him and kissed the top of his head.

Lyv and Jai shared a look and a silent conversation.

"A vision," Elys finally answered after several long moments, then straightened up beside Lyv. "What else is new?"

Lyv wasn't going to let him get too far away from her, though, grabbing his hand in both of hers after she brushed back his hair from his forehead. "But you haven't had one that's shaken you up this much since...well, you know."

"Since the war," he finished for her. "And you would think I would have been anticipating what I saw especially since coming home, but no. I just wanted to put it off for as long as possible, enjoy being home with everyone again, and yet here it is, watching and waiting."

Cleo, Lyv, and Jai remained silent until Elys continued.

"Dessa still doesn't know why her magic isn't there, why it's basically hidden. The dark magic inside hasn't only suppressed itself, but also her light. When I'm near her...I can feel it. Feel the spark inside her, how it's beginning to stir. That was the beginning of the vision, how it will explode from her so suddenly, so violently that she won't know how to handle it. We'll all be there, but then she'll disappear in the first portal she'll be able to create. I haven't been able to see where she'll end up, though. I'm trying, but I have a feeling I won't see anything until she's where she's at"

Lyv's hand immediately stretched across the table for Jai's just as he did the same.

Elys went on, looking between Lyv and Jai. "Portals aren't the only thing she'll be able to create. Her magic...just like her, it's a perfect combination of you two. Her healing magic will really only be limited to herself. She won't be able to heal others like Len can. Her light magic is mostly like Jai's, with elements of the magics from all four Dalcaine territories, but she'll definitely have Lyv's fire magic. But her fire...it will burn silver and onyx. Flames of shadows, really, and even more powerful.

"I'll help her as much as I can, but she'll need guidance only a few others can provide." This time, he looked at Cleo, too. "The dark magic. All three of you had or have it combined with your light. It will take time, but we'll all help her get even a little bit of control. And when she'll be able to handle all of it, which she will...sorry, Lyv, but Dessa's going to be even more powerful than you."

Lyv's hands were shaking, even as a smiled curled up the corners of his mouth. "I knew my sweet girl was special even before she was born."

"When though?" Jai asked. "When will it happen? Soon or...?"

The muscles in Elys's jaw visibly clenched. "Tomorrow."

Lyv's hands were shaking even more.

Jai sucked in a sharp breath through his nose and held it.

"Mother above," Cleo breathed out.

Elys let out a humorless laugh, seemingly wishing Lyv hadn't had the alcohol taken away. "Good thing you're here, too, Cleo, because she's going to need a little bit of your help right now. In a few weeks, though, we'll meet in Arloerin again. Dessa, Milena, Eamon, and I will. Des will want to train more with you with her magic. We'll have to help you with something first, though."

"And you know I am more than willing to help her," Cleo answered. Not only to Elys, but to Lyv and Jai, too. "With anything at all, I'm here. I'm really happy I came when I did then, especially since you said...tomorrow...gods."

Except slight narrowing of Elys's eyes, not in suspicion but in curiosity, caught her attention.

"You have something else you were wanting to know. It's the main reason you came, right? Not just to spend time with the family?"

"Well, I wasn't going to bring it up immediately when I got here. Geez."

She wanted to, though. How could she not?

Elys's smirk said he knew she did, too.

"Have you ever been able to see anything about the Lady in White?" Cleo asked, dropping her voice to nothing more than a whisper only the four of them could hear. "Anything at all? Like...like who she really is? What she looks like even?"

He took a moment to think about how he was going to explain. "I've never been able to really, truly see her. And trust me, I've tried ever since you first mentioned her all those years ago. She has an almost identical dark magic within her as you and Des, but hers is a little more overpowering than yours is. The only way she can get a handle on it is to leave this world and go to an...in-between. I think that's what she calls it. It's hidden her so well from my visions that all I ever see is that white hood covering her head, casting her face in the shadows. I can't even get her true name.

"But that's not the only thing you want to know. She's on her way to Arloerin right now from what I can tell. On behalf of the Empress of Krahzara. Not to kill you. Not yet, though I don't think she would be able to even if asked. She'll be gone by the time you get back, but she won't be gone for long. She'll be there again...with Malik and Kav. Malik is the only one who truly knows who she is and Kav will learn of that identity. My vision of that time stops as soon as you and her spot each other and freeze.

"When they get back to Arloerin once you're there, they'll come to find you, to save you from the true threat Sophea sends. Your kingdom...it will be under siege...and all I hear is screeching. We may have rid the dark creatures from our world, but there are some in Laria under the control of that person Sophea will send. A threat that I can't even begin to see. They're hidden even more than the darkness can hide you, Dessa, and the Lady in White when it wants."

The Lady in White having a similar darkness to Cleo and Dessa.

Malik knowing who she was, just as Kav suspected.

Kav finding out before she did.

And all three of them rushing to Cleo and Arloerin while its under siege from a darkness that threatened their world.