Two – 05

[This post is from Phelan’s point of view.]

He didn’t wait for Seamus or Thordin, or for the mists to burn off. Barely half an hour passed before Phelan took his leave of Marin and the fire, leaving her in Tala’s company to cook breakfast. He stopped only to pick up his staff and his satchel of herbs on his way out to the bridge. Jacqueline was absent; probably checking on Cariocecus before she, too, made her way to the fire.

Is it one of Vammatar’s sisters, finally coming for revenge? A new gambit of Leviathan’s? Was it Pluton and his array, or something else? Thesan?

A shiver crept down his spine that had nothing to do with the misty rain.

One way or another, he was going to find out, no matter what it took or how much it took out of him to do it.

His fingers tightened around the strap of his satchel as he crossed through the ward-lines and headed down toward the bridge. Nothing felt odd or strange as he passed through them, which was minor reassurance and nothing more.

I don’t always sense things coming anyway. Nothing should reassure me anymore.

Even the ley lines felt settled, though, as he crossed the bridge at a brisk pace. Something about that set off alarm bells that were probably born of nothing more than paranoia, started to make that feeling that all was as it should be feel even more like an illusion, something designed to lull him—to lull all of them—into a false sense of security.

Or had the storm really passed and it really was only his paranoia?

I’m finally losing my mind, he decided as he forged onward. The aching silence of the empty plaza weighed on him.

No. There must be something.

I should have woken Seamus or Thordin and dragged them along. Maybe both.

Probably both.

Phelan steeled himself and kept walking.

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