Ristan was a fighter, and a damn good one at that. He was powerful, and the only thing that I knew of that was strong enough to slow the Demon down, would be God bolts. Luckily Zahruk had the foresight to make weapons out of those things that we could use when they couldn’t figure out how they worked.
As we grew closer to the large open room that served as one of the reception rooms for the library and archives, I stopped and paused. So too, did everyone else. Not far away from us, we could hear soft crying that sounded like a female. I couldn’t tell who it was, but I figured it was a start at finding where they’d placed Ristan.
I didn’t make a foot before Ryder grabbed me and pulled me back to him. “Wait,” he whispered against my ear.
“Stop crying. Stupid girl, what are you crying for? Huh?” An angry male’s voice sounded from less than a few steps away from us.
“You killed innocent people. You didn’t have to kill them. They wouldn’t have told anybody!” the woman cried, and my spine straightened. My hands itched, and I moved forward. I had to get closer, and Ryder knew it.
He and his men followed me as I snuck up and ducked beneath one of the massive shelves that housed part of the Guild’s history. I couldn’t make out who was crying, and who the men were, but I could feel the hatred pouring off of them. My guess was at least the male was a Mage, and the woman was from the Guild.
Mages.
I felt them in the space now; felt their anxiety and their cocky self-assurance that they’d be successful today. Joke was on them. I’d learned that lesson the hard way, which they’d learn as well. You never got cocky when you hadn’t been dealt your hand yet.
“Shut her up, the Elder is gone. The Fae are in the building,” another male’s voice ground out and I stopped breathing.
I felt the others go still around me as well. We all watched as one of the Mages walked over to where we were, his eyes searching up and down the aisle, and missing us completely. I released the breath I was holding, and thanked the stars that he couldn’t actually see us while we were cloaked by Ryder’s invisibility veil.
Danu looked down at me and shook her head. “I can’t feel Bilé; not yet anyway, which means he can’t feel us, either.”
“That’s good,” I replied and watched as the Mage moved around, heading back in the direction he’d come from.
“You feel that? It almost feels as if we’re being watched,” he said to the others in the room.
“If we were being watched, Bilé would tell us,” another said. We stood up and moved further down the room until we rounded the corner, and the smell that met us, was nauseating. Dead bodies had been piled together.
I had to stop, close my eyes, and seal off my heart at the sight of people I had once known, people who had been killed recently, from the looks of the remains. I moved away from them without bothering to see if anyone followed. I couldn’t stand the sight of it, or the guilt that gnawed on me.
I knew I couldn’t have changed it, but it was a different matter getting my heart to accept that. I entered another room and waited at the threshold for the rest of the group. Inside the room was dark, but I could almost make out a silhouette. Whoever it was had their back to us and their head down.
I used the senses I’d been given, and tried to see through the darkness, but it was as if the darkness was a thick mist, and no matter how much I tried to, I couldn’t see through it.