“Speak.” The man’s voice came from all around her. The word was in Lemurian, his tone annoyed.
Lyssa replied in Lemurian. “I am Lyssa Corti, bearer of the Night Goddess, called Hecate. I have come to receive my message.”
“You will wait,” the man replied.
Lyssa stood there, staring at the shard web. Dealing with anyone on Last Remnant required more finesse and restraint than she liked. She’d also never been more eager to hear a message in her life. All the pain of the last fifteen years could be wiped away in the next few minutes.
She took shallow breaths and tapped her feet. There was nothing to distract her. The silence continued on the other end.
It would be a good message. It had to be.
The silence ended without warning when the man said, “Your message is as follows: the Northern Trickster has returned to the Vault of Dreams.”
Lyssa’s knees buckled, but she didn’t fall. Bile rose in the back of her throat. A more substantial breakfast might have escaped her stomach.
The man delivered the message like he was reading the next day’s forecast. It didn’t matter that the previous bearer of the Northern Trickster had been her brother. The return of any regalia to the vault meant only one thing: the Illuminated bound to that regalia was dead.
“W-what?” Lyssa stammered. “That’s impossible. Please repeat what you said.”
“The Northern Trickster regalia has returned to the Vault of Dreams,” the man replied. “That is the entirety of the message.”
“That can’t be right,” Lyssa shouted. “Not after everything I’ve done. Not after how close I’ve come.”
Her brother hadn’t looked like a prisoner in the picture she’d found. It proved he had been alive and walking around in public three years prior. He was a highly skilled Torch before he disappeared. There was no way anyone could have taken him down easily, especially after additional years of training and experience.
“There is no ambiguity in the message,” the man replied. “It is delivered. You have no further reason to be in communication with Last Remnant.”
“Fine,” Lyssa muttered through clenched teeth. “Thanks. I’m finished with the communication.”
The strings stopped vibrating. Lyssa staggered out of the room.
“You look unwell,” Caroline said. “Are you all right?”
“No, I’m far from all right. I’m downright bad.” Lyssa glared at the room. “Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to lie to me. I don’t suppose you can tell if someone’s lying through a far whisper? Some new spell you picked up recently?”
Caroline shook her head. “That’s impossible for me,” she said with a sympathetic look. “You think someone has lied to you? Someone on Last Remnant?”
“Yeah. I think someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to lie to me or to the guy who delivered that message, and I need to figure out who did it.”
“That would be difficult for me to discern without being present.” Caroline turned toward the far whisper room. “But if someone has lied to you, I hope for their sake they’re already running and hiding.”
Chapter Three
Vengeance wasn’t on Lyssa’s mind during her trip from Los Angeles to her foster parents’ home in Cardiff. She barely thought about anything other than the trip, becoming one with her bike as she made full use of her Night Mantle and Tenebrous Air to reach her destination in a little over twenty minutes. Overthinking might be one of her specialties, but she understood there were times she needed to clear her mind.
The brief trip and its accompanying motorcycle meditation had provided a small respite after such a painful message. She didn’t want to accept the implications, but that didn’t tell her how to proceed. Even a Sorceress couldn’t travel to Last Remnant with ease.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Jofi asked. He’d been quiet for most of the trip.
“No, not yet,” she replied. “I’m still processing things.”
“As you wish.”
The trip continued. Lyssa dropped her spells long before she drove up to the front door of the house. She leaned forward on her handlebars, her hands shaking.
The front door opened. Lyssa hadn’t called ahead, but Tricia didn’t look annoyed. She never did, and Lyssa was always grateful.
“If I had known you were coming, I would have made something.” Tricia smiled. “You could have called. You didn’t blow up another phone, did you?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve done that,” Lyssa said. “I was a little distracted on the way here, and it slipped my mind. Sorry.”
“It’s okay, honey. I wasn’t in the middle of anything important.” Tricia’s smile dimmed. “But are you okay?”
“Not really. We need to talk.” Lyssa looked at her bike, questioning whether she’d done enough to conceal her trip from others on her way there. She’d come to Cardiff on pure reaction.
To her knowledge, there was no one hunting her. That didn’t mean it was okay to put Tricia and Fred at risk because she couldn’t keep her emotions in check.
“Damn it,” Lyssa muttered. She slapped her cheeks. “Get it together, Corti.”
Tricia gestured inside. “Go relax. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m sure talking it through will help. You know you’re safe when you’re here.”
The older Sorceress spoke in the same warm tone she’d used during so many painful conversations during Lyssa’s teenage years. Often, Lyssa didn’t agree with her foster mother’s take on a situation, but it was rare for Tricia to raise her voice. Without her, Lyssa wasn’t sure she would have grown into a semi-stable adult.
After placing her helmet on her bike, Lyssa stumbled inside the house on autopilot, but the familiar warmth and smells of the home didn’t do much to calm her pounding heart. She all but fell onto the couch and put her face in her hands.
What should she do? What could she do?
Think. That was what she needed to do. She couldn’t let her feelings rule her mind. That wouldn’t help her situation. She needed to sort out what she knew as fact versus what she suspected. Paranoia could help keep her safe, but it
