Chapter 738: Naturally. Why The Hell Not. Of Course.

A matebond is a bridge. Gavriel’s green magic was also a bridge. Bridges carry traffic in both directions. And something had just crossed one of Gavriel’s bridges uninvited, and the uninvited thing had taken something from his chest on the way through.

He waited until the footsteps faded. Then he let his shoulder sag against the doorframe and pressed his palm harder against his sternum. His definition of fine had expired.

Gavriel: Hyran, where are you?

Hyran: My study in the library. Why?

Gavriel pushed off the doorframe and moved.

The library was across the Keep’s main corridor and down one level.

Gavriel covered the distance at a pace that was too fast for casual and too controlled for panic, the stride of a man splitting the difference between urgency and the appearance of not having urgency because the corridors had eyes and the eyes had mouths and the mouths reported to people he did not want informed.

The library doors opened into the vaulted main chamber, and Gavriel crossed it. Hyran was descending the large staircase.

Hyran stopped. One step from the floor. His eyes moved across Gavriel’s face.

"What is it?" he asked in a tone that was not smart-ass or Hyran whatsoever because Hyran had been acting strange around Gavriel since he had woken up from that coma and Gavriel had not questioned it.

"I need a portal to Shadowclaw," Gavriel replied.

???

SHADOWCLAW - AERON’S STUDY

While the Gamma of Drakenfell told his spotter he was fine and a mage that he needed a portal, Maelor Vantheos made a celebrity guest appearance in Aeron’s study.

The Master Mage of Nighstpire had been born with the unshakable conviction that the Goddess had made him first and everyone else from whatever was left over, and nothing in his subsequent experience had challenged this belief.

Serena lay stretched on Aeron’s lounge with her head tipped back and a slow line of blood running from her nose.

Maelor stood over her, his hands hovering a few inches above her sternum. Green light pooling beneath his palms as he took in the data.

After thirty seconds, he gave Serena a knowing look that Serena immediately didn’t like.

"What specifically made you feel it fading? And I’d like something beyond the obvious." He didn’t look up from his work. "Nightspire, clearly. And I’m assuming Shadowclaw is tucked into a coma somewhere, which left you to take over the kingdom like a big girl. That all tracks beautifully." His eyes flicked to the blood running down her nose. "What doesn’t track is why you waited until now to come to me."

Aeron pushed off the wall he’d been holding up. "Maelor. Give her your word already."

"Fine." The word left Maelor on a theatrical sigh, as though Aeron had asked him to carry furniture. He flicked a wrist in Serena’s direction. "I will keep this confidential. There. Satisfied? I cannot help you if you insist on starving me of information, which, for the record, is the one thing in this room I find genuinely offensive."

Serena kept her eyes on the ceiling. "I can’t hear my wolf anymore. And I’ve had two vivid nightmares." Her voice was flat and emotionless. Just stating facts.

Maelor’s hands stilled.

"This." He gestured at her with one glowing palm, addressing the air. "This is precisely why Hyran and Tiberon didn’t want you informed of the attack. Magic use and heightened emotion both feed the tether. Keep you calm, keep you ignorant, keep the tether starved." He resumed his reading. "A sound plan, undone by the fact that you are apparently incapable of sitting still while a continent is on fire."

Serena’s gaze came down off the ceiling and landed on him. When she spoke, her voice stayed level, which somehow made it sharper.

"Maelor. Do us both a favor and stop calling me emotional. The tether is deepening regardless of my mood. Contrary to whatever you’ve decided about me, I am not an idiot, and I am fully aware of every variable you’re so proud of listing."

Maelor regarded her for a long moment. Then he turned his head towards Aeron with the air of a physician consulting a colleague over an interesting specimen.

"It’s making her irritable, too," he observed.

Serena rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and left them there.

Maelor returned to his work, and his tone shifted, the theater thinning. "There’s more happening in here than two nightmares and a quiet wolf. You’re sitting on something else that you don’t want me to know. Your Fae magic gives you away, girl. I can feel you, remember."

"I am aware you can feel me, Maelor. That means you can feel that I meant every word about this staying confidential. Now please re-cloak my tether and go back to insulting what I am wearing. I beg of you."

From the wall, Aeron broke out into laughter.

Maelor’s head whipped towards him. "Something funny, Lancaster?"

"Yes. What she just said was funny," Aeron answered with zero apologies.

WHUMMM.

A gold portal split the air in the corner of the study.

Aeron, Maelor, and Serena all turned toward it at once, with three distinct expressions. Serena’s said not now. Aeron’s said I am going to murder Thornfell. Maelor’s said if this is anyone other than the Goddess herself I am closing it from this side.

The gold burned at the edges, unmistakable in its signature, and then Hyran Thornfell stepped through it with Gavriel one pace behind him.

Naturally. Because why the hell not? Of course a portal was opening in the middle of a confidential magical examination. Of course Hyran Thornfell was stepping through it, the person who would report this to King Tiberon before the hour ended. Of course Gavriel was behind him, the person Serena still needed to have a conversation with and the person who she was afraid the tether would affect. Of course the one room in Shadowclaw where Serena was trying to handle something privately had just become the most populated shitshow in the castle.