“Have you found him?”
The council hall was in uproar, quiet uproar, of the sort that said its participants knew better than to let it get out. Marlais crouched, panting, in front of Aered, trying to gather the breath to speak. “No, Clan Mother,” he said at last. “I have searched everywhere in the lair. Ran is looking outside still. We have seen no sign of him. Even his cats are gone.”
Aered exhaled slowly, trying not to let her emotions show. “I see. Farran. Do your visions tell you anything?”
The seer shook his head. “I see only flickering shadow and butterflies. They linger even when I redirect my gaze. Nothing has ever been able to interfere like this before.”
“He has grown powerful,” Laellar said softly.
The Clan Mother nodded. She could not let the others see her fear. Fear for herself, perhaps, as the one who had punished him, but even more so fear for her clan. “What of his family?”
“Greldort has been with Lyra today. They claim to know nothing, and I could see no falsehood,” Silver said. His voice was still hoarse and his plumage dull, though he was far better off than he had been just a few days ago. “Winter has detained Iah, but he does not have any answers for us, and trying to read him is like reading the whole clan at once...” The boy had shown all the signs of overload and, more concerning still, of a deeper sort of illness than the one Silver himself was still recovering from, but the older skydancer knew better than to voice his concerns now. There would be no sympathetic ears in this council.
Aered dug her claws into the rock. “Do the other clans know?”
Elestin shook her head. “As far as I can tell, no one has realized it yet. The delay in the start of the Games may have raised suspicions… but—”
The rest of her words were drowned out by a huge rumbling. Dragons scrambled to their feet, only to be knocked off them as the earth shook beneath them. As soon as her claws found purchase on the tilting ground, Aered shouted, “Elestin! Find Sombra and Aya, and head to the arena! Farran, get Basah. Go!”
--
Sussuri curled happily in a tree as he watched vast rifts open in the arena. His cats curled beside him, the orange one swatting at a butterfly as it returned with news. It was unfortunate, on one hand, because such a violent event meant the guards would no doubt be coming to investigate, but such a surprising and spectacular sight… The spiral’s grin widened. He had missed this.
