Aeron watched her go before he turned back to address his men. "You realize, all of you, that with Layel's news this all has become a much more serious matter than we once thought."
"Hey, did you guys forget about me? Now that you've determined I was telling the truth, maybe you could let me out," Darien said from his place still trapped inside the cell.
Aeron shrugged. "Your particular information is of most value to my father King Vovin and not the heir. I'm glad you told me instead of my dear brother, but that would convince me to give you some trinket, like a scroll of the spells of the most powerful wizards in your golden age. It's hardly worth such great sacrifices on my part as you have demanded."
Darien grimaced and looked away from him, only to have his gaze caught by the sneering vamps. "Why are we talking about this with them here anyways?"
Cillean grinned. "My good friend the prince is clearly offering me a little gift for apprehending someone on his most wanted list. You know that your human race is a particular delicacy for our kind."
Darien blanched. "Wait! I haven't told you everything yet. It's not just the plan to kill everyone. Somewhere in all of their plotting they also plan to kill my sister," he blurted.
The others scoffed. "You're just saying whatever you can to try to worm out of this," Daerick pointed out.
The vampire king rolled his eyes. "You don't have a sister, or you wouldn't know if you did. They separate children between the cities," Cillean pointed out.
Aeron ignored their talk to focus on the others in the room. "I will have to plan some strategy for all of this, and, in the meantime, I have to make sure all of my dependents are kept safe. That means," he spoke directly to Cillean, "I will have to have the girl's guard brought here, along with a few backups to make sure she does not mysteriously go missing again," he frowned at the thought. "Obviously, I will also have to send for some guards to serve as a backup escort for you all. I trust that your man will not interfere with my people's visit?"
Cillean and Daerick exchanged looks while Layel shifted nervously in his seat. The vampire king sighed. "I realize it's necessary, so I think I will have to allow that, but I must mention that this is, technically, still our people's safe house. I'm afraid we're going to have to blind them," he said.
"That's fine," Aeron responded.
"I really think you shouldn't dismiss this Aeron! Alyss is in danger," Darien insisted.
"Yes, I got that when you said it earlier," he responded testily. "People in a position of authority have to worry about all the people under their power and not just the people they care about, though," Aeron said. "I can't say that I think having you around could help with that problem in any way, though. Your judgment may be clouded by your affection."
"Of course I have a personal interest in her wellbeing, but it would also be a bummer for you that she's going to be killed. If, however, you think that you'd like to keep her safe, I know enough about my people that I could help you stop their rebellion," Darien wheedled.
"I will consider your offer. First, I need to make sure that she is safe," he snarled. "Cillean, be sure to look out for Jackie as well. I'll send my orders for all of you once I've got her secured," he added. His transport spell consumed him in his usual black fire.
CHAPTER FOUR
Spirited Away
The black fire slowly dissipated to reveal Aeron stepped onto a leaf-littered path. He started pacing.
The girl was at risk; that was for certain. He had hunted her for so long out of an affection and friendship they'd once shared. Others had hunted her because of who she was, and what she was. To the rest of the world she was a pawn, a very powerful and useful pawn. He knew what happened to useful people. They were either held and kept as prisoners by jail keepers who were lax on their welfare and didn't take good care of them; or, even worse, she might be kept by more aggressive peoples and used to extract information about her kind and all of the rulers of the land from her, not knowing that she remembered less than nothing of who and what she was before.
He didn't really know how he could keep track of Alyss, how he could keep her safe. He had searched for her for all this time, spent so much of his resources hunting her down, gone against the wishes and rulings of his father and her parents, but he had done it anyway at great cost to himself and to his career. Now he stood there just simply worrying over her. What else could he do? He didn't know what exactly he could do at this point to keep her safe.
No, his experience had all been in getting her found. He had no clue how to keep her found, how to keep her safe in a world full of lunatics. Would she be safest here, on the Original, where the Mundane humans peacefully went through their days and lives and never had to worry about magic disasters? But that was no good, because the wizards planned to ruin the safety of this world, destroy the lives of these very same Mundanes.
Would it be best to leave her in this human-run world anyways that was so famous for murders and thefts? His world was no different; no world was perfect, but still he at least had power in his own realm. Power could help him keep those he cared about safe. Here in the human world he was just a
