Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Of course, that was many years ago and there was no true and accurate accounting of it, and although there were numerous mentions of him, this deficit of knowledge included what was recorded in the tomes of the Go’Doan.
So perhaps there had been some purpose to it.
Some purpose that, when the Beast was imprisoned under the earth and his reign of terror halted, did not come to fruition.
Jellan wished to know.
Jellan needed to know.
But to attempt to find out, he’d have to separate those two and it did not seem he’d be able to.
On this thought, Jellan felt it and his head automatically tipped to the side when he did.
And as he was thinking on Daemon and Marian, and thus riding behind them and partly to their sides, he had their eyes on them.
As such, he saw Daemon’s head give a slight twitch.
By the true gods.
He felt it.
He felt it too!
Did he feel all the others that had happened recently?
Jellan could not see much of Marian, but what he could see, it did not appear as if she had.
“It’s the veil,” he called, blurting it right out.
Both Daemon and Marian turned to him.
Bloody hell.
“I wish you would make him speak only when spoken to,” Marian complained.
He barely spoke at all.
The bitch.
For once, Daemon ignored her.
And in so doing, Jellan took heart.
“What is the veil?” he asked.
“What you felt. It is the veil. The magical veil. It shrouds all of Triton. Even the seas and Mar-el. And it is disturbed, continues to be so and has for some time.”
Not disturbed, as such.
Growing.
Amassing power.
Daemon stared at him.
Marian glared at him.
Jellan put his heels to his mount and cantered closer to them.
“We should find news of what is happening on Triton,” he advised when he was riding at their side.
“Why would we need that?” Marian asked snidely.
“Because,” Jellan said to her calmly, “there have been a number of impacts on the veil these past days. Witches are ascending.”
She continued to glare at him, but Daemon asked, “Witches are ascending?”
“Dying,” he told him. “Powerful ones. And in their deaths, they ascend and the magic they wield on earth joins the veil.”
Daemon appeared very interested in this.
But Jellan did not have the opportunity to press it, for Marian demanded, “Why are they dying?”
“I do not know,” he answered. “This is why we must seek news about what is happening in the realms.”
He turned his gaze to Daemon to see the creature appeared contemplative.
“You feel it, yes?” he pushed. “When there is a tremor in the veil.”
“I did not know what it was,” he muttered.
“I feel it too,” Marian said swiftly.
“But you cannot read it,” Jellan returned, just as swiftly.
“It is not important to us, witches dying,” she retorted.
“It is important to us why the veil shifted just now,” he declared.
“Another witch dying? That must happen all the time, and I know it does for I felt this veil shift as you say, repeatedly.”
“It is not only when witches die that it trembles, Marian,” he shared haughtily.
“And why else does it tremble?” Daemon cut in.
Should he tell him of the prophecy?
Jellan did not know, and in truth, had reflected on this question much these past days.
He did not have control over the Beast. He was not even certain Marian did.
He was struggling with the answer to that question and was seeing now, he should not have alerted them to the messages of the veil before he’d made a decision.
“Jellan, answer,” Daemon demanded.
“Powerful witches at work. Powerful spells cast. Powerful rituals held,” Jellan dissembled. “For instance, the rituals conducted to awaken you caused more than a tremor of the earth. It was felt in the veil.”
“Hmm,” Daemon hummed, then queried, “Do they know I have ascended?”
Jellan shook his head, his reaction honest this time.
“I don’t know. Though, I would assume if they had, we would not have been unmolested as we have been since you made the surface.”
Daemon appeared also to be thinking hard on that.
But Marian was watching him closely and Jellan’s heart beat hard in his chest for he sensed she knew he was not being completely forthcoming.
He felt certain she’d expose him and was utterly stunned when she did not.
Instead, she looked forward and stated, “He might be right. Perhaps we should know what’s happening in the realms. Understand these messages of the veil.”
Jellan was not sure the decision he was making was the right one. He did not know if he could gain the trust, and control, over the Beast to do his bidding, not Marian’s, not Daemon’s own. It did not seem in the now he could, though it did seem he was useful to the creature, if not useful to Marian.
But he did not feel he had firm footing in their little trinity.
Thus, he decided not to tell them the lovers had united in one place.