“Ovailia is more talk than action.” Ilyan put a stop to Thom’s insistence quickly, the depth of his voice demanding respect. “She won’t do anything without someone backing her up. She will not attack until our father is here, and I don’t sense him yet.
“When will Wyn be ready to move?” Ilyan asked, his voice floating over the table toward no one in particular.
“I don’t know; it’s been hours since Joclyn healed her,” Thom growled.
“It will be tomorrow,” I said, my magic wrapping around her from across the abbey. I felt the steadiness of her heartbeat along with the continual strengthening of her mind and magic. I didn’t look at anyone as I spoke. I only focused on Wyn and on the last of Talon’s magic that swirled inside of her.
“Good,” Ilyan sighed. “Then, unless anything else happens, we will move as soon as Joclyn is ready. It will be nice to have Wyn on my side again. I have to admit, I have missed her this past century.”
My focus shot toward Ilyan at his words, my eyebrows arching in confusion, but he didn’t even seem to notice. I must have misheard. She had been married to his best friend for the last century. I wasn’t sure how that constituted missing someone. I opened my mouth to question him, only to be cut off by Sain, his comments only adding to my bewilderment.
“You are not the only one, My Lord,” my father said, his voice resonating in a peculiar, happy tone. It filled the room in an incompatible way, the words seeming false against the stress I still felt. “I think she is even glad to be back. A little confused at times, but she is coping well enough,” Sain continued, a deep vein of pride in his voice, like a father to a particularly disobedient child.
“What do you mean she’s confused?” I asked, my eyes darting toward my father for the first time since I had moved to stand beside him.
My father, however, only smiled and looked toward his mug, diverting his attention to whatever was happening in the bottom and not in answering my question. I sighed and looked toward Thom, my eyes digging into him. The anger that had fueled him for the last few minutes faded as he looked away from me, obviously uncomfortable.
“Can we move on, please?” Thom interrupted, unwilling to answer my stare. I pursed my lips at his little outburst, knowing I should be mad, yet his reaction was too much like him for it to matter.
“We have at least twenty camps, that we know of, and at least a hundred Trpaslíks surrounding us on the east side of the abbey. That does not account for any that we may not have seen on the west or north sides where this camp is.” Thom’s voice was loud as he rattled off the information. He spoke with an authoritative tone that I had never heard from him before. I hadn’t thought Thom had that in him.
“Thank you for the recap, Thomas,” my father said, the smile on his face evident.
“Well, if you would stay on track…” Thom’s voice rose more, the command gone, only to be replaced by a somewhat hysterical anger.
“I stay on track as well as you win at gin rummy,” Sain said, unable to hide his laughter now.
“Gin rummy is an old man’s game.” I wasn’t sure if Thom was still angry or if the banter was habitual. It seemed so natural, yet I had the feeling that they could still break out into a fight at the tiniest prodding.
“Remind me how old you are again, son?” All laughter was gone from Sain’s voice now.
“Don’t call me that, grandpa. I could wipe the floor with you.”
I took in nothing from their repartee. All I saw were the crimson circles that littered the surface of the map, the glistening numbers right beside.
I had thought the numbers were wrong before, but I hadn’t questioned it much. Now I could feel it. While thunder rolled over us, shaking the abbey as it grew louder, my magic surged through the darkened grounds and sensed them.
All of them.
“Wipe the floor?” Sain asked.
“You are too old to understand,” Thom said, his own laugh sounding hollow in my ears as my mind remained focused through the miles of forest that surrounded us.
“Enough,” Ilyan interrupted, his voice caught between a laugh and a yell, and I jumped. “I had forgotten how bad you two were together. Even my parents never bickered as much.”
Everyone laughed around me as I felt the first swells of the Trpaslík hatred and anger, their violent magic surging as they milled around the edges of the protective barrier that Ilyan had placed around the abbey.
My magic began to paint the image of their camps in my mind, giving me a second sight as I watched them drink and sleep around magical fires. I stretched until the magic of the Trpaslíks changed to one of a different nature—one that I couldn’t place—moving around them. The hatred in this unknown power was even stronger than Edmund’s men. I moved away from the foreign magic, unwilling to feel more of it, and let my mind embrace what I knew, creating my own map inside my head.