A couple Council members gave half-nods at Nalith’s words, though none would speak aloud after Terak’s earlier rebuke.
“While I do not disagree about the chaos the gods cause, it matters little in this situation. She was attacked in the agreed upon timeframe, and we will determine if this is what the Oracle alluded to before we leave the human.” Nalith’s jaw clenched and he sat. Terak continued, “We will watch the human. We will meet tomorrow at first light and continue this discussion. Now, I must go. Until the morrow.”
Krikus nodded. “Agreed.” The other Council members nodded, though Terak could not tell those who were displaying their true feelings from those who did not wish anger him any further.
Terak left and headed back to Larissa. He needed to speak to Valry as well, but that he would leave to later. Larissa had been alone long enough.
The young warrior was holding a phone when Terak approached the door. He took the phone and entered the room.
Larissa was still by the fire, looking into the flame as though all answers could be found there. She looked up with the opening of the door, first focusing on his face, then on the small black phone held in his hand.
He held it out to her and she walked as fast as she could without running to grab the phone from his hand.
While she dialed the number and said, “Dad,” into the receiver, Terak pondered the schism within his Clan, the one even now Nalith and Valry were working to exploit – between those who wished to have contact with the outside world versus those who wished to remain as they had always been, self-sufficient and without any outside encumbrances save for favors owed them.
Encumbrances this one human woman exemplified.
And as she said, “Yes, Dad, I owe you big. Promise, next time I’m there… Yes, Dad, with a skirt and make-up,” Terak knew how to answer her question and convince her that he should be allowed to stay at her side.
Chapter Six
It hadn’t been this hard to part with a phone since she was fourteen and had been waiting for Jared Thompson to ask her to junior prom, but as Terak held out a massive hand, Larissa placed the shiny black rectangle there without any outward sign of her struggle.
“I was able to convince Dad not to send out a search party by promising to be there for brunch tomorrow,” she said, aware even as the words were leaving her mouth that such a blatant warning would do nothing more than amuse the gargoyle in front of her.
Thankfully he didn’t laugh, though she could swear a ghost of a smile played on his lips. Instead he said, “You will be there, do not worry.”
The reassurance beat back the fear that had begun creeping through her psyche while he was gone. She nodded toward the door. “It must be hard to be in charge, people always needing you for something.”
“It is my duty and my role to fulfill.”
He said that without any boast or pridefulness. It was a statement of fact, his calling made into words. “Why are you the leader? Were you elected?”
“My father was leader. At his death, I took his place.”
“So you are a king?”
“Not quite.” He went to the couch in front of the fireplace and sat down. There was a natural elegance about him, so at odds with the warrior exterior. His wings folded around him with enough of an opening to allow her to still see his hands and chest. “While leadership is passed down through a bloodline, the Mennak must also be the strongest. Any gargoyle may issue challenge to claim the title.”
“Mennak?”
“The title of the leader.”
“What kind of challenge?”
He didn’t answer, not in words, but the way the question made his eyes flicker from hers answered it anyway. Before the Collision, the Magic Realm was closely related to Earth’s medieval feudal societies. She knew that as a fact found in books and as lectures written in chalk, but it never impressed itself upon her as deeply as right now.
Terak rose then. He motioned around the room. “These books contain histories created by gargoyles of all the races, dating back tens of thousands of years from the Magic Realm, information that can only be found in this one room. They are observations, studies of outsiders looking in. There are very few interactions between my people and those of the outside world. Gargoyles have long kept ourselves apart from the other races. But with the Great Collision, many of my people wish to experience the New Realm not as outsiders, but as part of the fabric of this new world.”
“It’s a worthy goal,” Larissa said, not sure where he was going with this.
“It is hard to let go of millennia of suspicions – on both sides – but it must start somewhere. Perhaps the first step needed is a gargoyle helping a human woman escape from necromancers. Let us watch over you as a first step.”