My mother has been killed. My daughter Cyra is currently at Ardathiel with Lyrinel Daybreak. You are to retrieve her at once and keep her until I return home, whenever that may be.
Please.
- Essalie
Zosine lofted a brow at the note, hastily written and still smelling faintly of fel and ash. How Essalie had even gotten the news of her child’s whereabouts, he had no idea, but it seemed that things now fell to him.
Wonderful.
It wasn’t as if the ranch was at max capacity, especially with Vistara, Ell, and the Fleetfoot sisters scheduled to be on duty for a few more weeks yet. Another child running around only somewhat supervised would just be another day at the ranch, really.
If not for what she’d done for him, and the urgency that could only be conveyed by a truly panicked parent, Zosine would have scoffed at the note. But the fact that he was able to walk to the stable and mount his irritable hawkstrider entirely unassisted, without aid of his cane or another person, was entirely Essalie’s doing, and for that he was eternally in her debt.
So he found himself, riding through the Ghostlands, moving almost by instinct towards Ardathiel, following the current of magic that was constantly being sucked toward the grounds to keep them rejuvenated among the otherwise magically withered wood.
He hadn’t been back since he paid a visit to Lyrinel while she was pregnant. She’d frightened him, in truth, with how deeply entranced she was in her own dream, completely disconnected from reality, especially where Thradia was concerned.
But he could tell something had changed, if only because the wrought iron gates leading to the property were now shut, where they used to be open almost all the time.
A pulse of arcane seemed to examine him, find him worthy, and animate the gates to open, creaking ever so slightly with the motion. Zosine urged his strider through, feeling his anxiety get the better of him.
He knocked on the golden lynx head knocker and waited. The aura around the grounds had changed. It was quieter, more aware somehow. The dreamlike quality was still there, but now it felt like a lucid dream rather than one so deep that you may never wake from it.
Lyrinel answered the door, and she was the most different thing of all. She bounced Hanniel on her hip, clinging to him. She didn’t smile when she saw Zosine, not at first. She looked him over critically, and as she did so, he caught sight of the blade she wore at her hip.
“Expecting someone... else?” he dared to ask.
She finally smiled, but it was not the lazy, languid smile of the dreamer she used to be. Her eyes were bright and alert, catching his every move and intonation. “You could say that. How can I help you, Zosine?”
Her words were crisp and curt, lilting as always, but they reminded him of her clerical days at the Academy. Whatever had broken her spell, he was glad for it.
“I’m here to fetch Cyra, actually,” he replied, offering the note as way of explanation. “It seems her grandmother has... passed away.”
Lyrinel looked the note over, a shadow passing briefly over her face. “Asanna. Horribly sad. She was always so kind to me.” She handed the note over, turning to call over her shoulder. “Thradia? Could you bring Cyra here? Someone’s here to pick her up.”
Zosine found it odd that she referred to him as “someone” to his own adopted daughter, but with all the strange signals passing around him, he didn’t want to push it. They waited in tense silence, which Zosine broke by conjuring a butterfly of flame to dance about for Hanniel to watch and laugh at. It was a favorite trick among all of the children at home.
Cyra soon appeared, Thradia lurking behind her. She came obediently to Lyrinel’s side, but Thradia lingered in the shadows, unwilling to come fully to the door. Zosine peered at her over Lyrinel’s shoulder, but she turned away and retreated back into the house. Zosine was puzzled.
“Did something happen?” he finally asked, something he probably should have asked sooner.
“Rhaelia’s dead. Thradia and Alorinus are not speaking at the moment.”
“Oh.”
“I killed her.”
Zosine’s eyes went again to the blade at her hip, the vice-like way she held Hanniel to her side. “Oh.” He looked down at Cyra, forcing himself to smile. “Hello, Cyra. I’m a good friend of your mother’s. She’s asked me to come and take you home with me. There’s lots of other children to play with there. Would you like to go meet them?”
Cyra nodded, a cautious smile slowly brightening her features. She offered a hand up to Zosine, which he carefully took. He looked back to Lyrinel, who was receding back into her fortress, getting ready to shut the door.
“Good job, Nel,” was all he had to say.
The smile she gave him in return sent a chill down his spine, even as he lead Cyra to his waiting strider.
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