Forgotten Elements

With all the dead bodies and the fact that there wasn’t an official leader or records of who lived in this realm, we couldn’t determine if someone in this village had also been abducted. Based on how the other two attacks had been distractions to steal something, I was going to go with yes.

We portaled back to the field, wanting some privacy. Wyatt talked about the web of magic connecting the bodies and how he was confident it was a step in a spell that had yet to be cast. He pulled up a holographic map of this realm with glowing dots evenly spaced around the mainland.

Parker and I took turns telling them everything we discovered, from the elementals draining the realms using deity spells to Damon and his parents. They were particularly interested in the latter.

In hindsight, I knew I should’ve asked the family about the keys and possibly the sisters, but that hadn’t been an immediate problem. I hadn’t known a key was back in play and the creatures were a part of this. As for the sisters, I’d been afraid they might be a hot-button topic. What if they were supporters of the sisters since they were obviously of the species? With how little I knew about the sisters, I figured it wasn’t smart to go throwing their names around.

“You’re sure their magic is similar to Emmy’s?” Jade asked, finger combing through her tangled hair.

“Trust me, I’ll never forget the kind of magic she displayed at the Beach houses,” I muttered, my ears aching at the memory of her piercing scream after she created a torrential storm. She’d done a good job at hiding her energy signature, but some of that ancient magic had still seeped through.

“After harnessing the magic from one of the keys, I know similar magic types when I feel it,” Parker added, pulling off his ripped and bloody shirt and conjuring a new one. A couple of healing scratches marred his back that I hadn’t noticed, and the sight had my stomach sinking. Rather than marvel at the sight of the muscles in his back like I would’ve normally done, I stared daggers at the cuts, enraged that those bitches had hurt him.

It made me wish they were alive so I could kill them myself.

I hadn’t realized I’d moved closer to him until I was reaching out and brushing a finger next to the healing wounds. It now appeared to be simple scratches, but based on the amount of blood on his shirt, I knew it hadn’t been so harmless.

His muscles flexed under my hand before he turned around and captured my wrist. My gaze shot up to his, finding him staring down at me. The multifaceted shades in his eyes drew me in, and I ended up leaning up toward him, standing on my tiptoes when Jade took after her older sister.

“Wait a fucking second, are they—”

“I don’t know why you’re so surprised,” Wyatt muttered, proving he was still as gruff and terrible at socialization as ever. He was still looking at the symbols we’d redrawn for him. “Surely you smelt it on her when you hugged her.”

I practically jerked back from Parker as my face heated. Was now the best time to be discussing this? How about never?

“You know what this means, right?” Reed asked as he glanced between Parker and me, his eyes narrowed, not in anger but like he was trying to see the bond. If a Mythic was skilled enough and the bond was far enough along, it was possible.

“That when we find your friend Artemis, you owe her your favorite dagger,” Wyatt muttered as he squinted at the symbols.

“Wait, the gold one with the dragon handle?” Jade asked, sounding as surprised as I felt.

At the same time, Koa asked, “Why the fuck would you ever make a bet against that crazy bitch?”

None of us took offense to Koa’s question or corrected him. If Ari were here, she’d laugh at being called a crazy bitch. No, what would’ve gotten on her nerves was Wyatt’s use of her full name. Koa had used it in the past, but even he was smart enough to never call her that to her face. Ander’s only been moronic enough to do it a few times.

Reed’s reaction was strange and had my curiosity peaking. He shrugged at the mention of him losing the dagger he’d always been careful with. I could tell from his expression and his closed-off position that he didn’t want to talk about this anymore.

“She was going on about how she would soon be three for three on predicting fated mates,” Wyatt said casually as he folded up the paper and sent a burst of magic through it. The paper vanished, either being stored elsewhere or it was destroyed.

Jade’s eyes widened, and her mouth formed an ‘O’ as she glanced between Parker and me for several moments before stomping her foot. “Why am I always the last one to find out about these things?” She wasn’t exaggerating. Even with her own mating, she’d been one of the last to realize they were fated mates. Her denial game was that strong.

“Don’t worry Jay. Star and Lor don’t know yet…probably,” Reed said, wincing when he realized that didn’t help.

“We can deal with your unobservant nature later,” Wyatt finally said with a sigh, cutting off whatever Jade was about to say. “First we need to figure out what this thing is for certain, and then maybe we’ll be able to ascertain its endgame.”

While his delivery was gruff and rude, he made a fair point.

“Okay, where should we start?” I crossed my arms as I watched Parker pull on his shirt from the corner of my eye.

“We need to learn everything we can about this realm.” Wyatt pulled up the map again, and this time, it was bigger than before, allowing us a better view. “He chose this realm for some reason, and I have a feeling it’s not just because of the magic.”

I frowned down at the map as I circled it, confident the angle I’d been standing at was why the map was wrong. “There isn’t an island here,” I murmured, pointing to the island on the top right corner of the map.

“The map was given to us by Magnus. I doubt he’d give us something inaccurate.”

I shook my head in frustration as I sighed. “I was on a nearby island, and I would’ve sensed the connection of land nearby.”

Parker’s finger hovered over the island next to the one I was confident didn’t exist. “This one?”

When I nodded, he made hand gestures as magic formed between his palms, and a portal appeared next to us. Once it was fully formed, he waved a hand toward the whirling portal. “Let’s get this matter settled then.”

Wyatt was the first one through, and I followed close behind him onto the island I’d been on only days ago, but with everything that had gone on this past day, it felt like weeks.

I connected to the earth as I walked the few feet to the water and knelt so I could place my hands on the surface. Closing my eyes, I reached out for the nearby lands and felt the other islands in the distance, but nothing in the direction where the map said there was an island. I shook my head and pulled my hands from the water with a sigh. “I told you. There’s nothing there.”

Wyatt’s eyes were closed as he muttered a spell under his breath. The steady buzz of his magic flowed around him, reminding me once again of the amount of power he wielded. The spell floated over the ocean and out of my sight. “Do you feel what I feel?” He asked, not opening his eyes, and at first, I didn’t know who he was talking to.

“I feel it,” Parker murmured, coming to stand beside me, his focus trained on the horizon line. “There’s a barrier spell a couple of miles out and not a small one either. It’s camouflaging the presence of the island.”

“An elemental didn’t create this barrier, a sorceress did,” Wyatt added as his eyes drifted open. “That’s why you didn’t sense the island or the barrier. It was created to hide the presence of the island from elementals—particularly the ones visiting the realm.”

“Why would Magnus give you a map including this hidden island if they want it kept a secret?”

“Maybe it was an accident?” Jade suggested with a shrug, looking between Wyatt and Parker.

Wyatt rubbed his jaw, staring out at the ocean as if he could see the island or the barrier. Maybe he could. “I don’t know, but we’re about to find out. I’ll need to be careful in creating this portal.” As he spoke, his potent magic filled the air. He usually only had to do a couple of hand gestures—his control over his magic was that precise and complete—but I guess he wanted to be on the safe side. That or he had to do more to get past the barrier.

The portal deposited us several feet away from the ocean, and dead grass crunched under my bare feet. The dead grass was the first I’d found in this realm, and the magic coming from it was weak and almost nonexistent. What the hell happened here to cause this?

As I scanned where the land met the ocean and upward, I noticed a slight ripple in the air. Now that I was on the inside of the barrier, I could sense it encircling the entire island, going up several hundred feet above us.

From what I could tell, looking at the short, brown grass, this used to be a beautiful meadow, teaming with life and magic. But now, it was a dead spot of energy. It was a little jarring being here, feeling no magic coming from the surrounding elements, unable to connect to the elements outside the barrier. My legs shook a little, and my head felt a little light. It wasn’t as bad as when I exited the realm and was nothing compared to the wastelands. That shitty place had sucked at my magic until I struggled to stay awake.

Even though I doubted I showed any signs of being off-kilter, Parker wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against his side. The faintest traces of warmth filled my chest as my body relaxed from being in physical contact with him.

“What the fuck happened here to kill this island?” Reed murmured as he squatted and brushed his fingers over the grass.

“Something catastrophic,” Parker said as he gently ran his fingers up and down my side.

Jade moved closer to the barrier, looking up at the rippling air. “Whatever it is, it was bad enough they wanted to hide it.”