Free Web NovelChapter 282: Chapter 282: It touched me through the throne bond
"So it’s been moving faster than Silas tracked," Damon said.
"Yes," Silas said. He was looking at the table. "It waited. It let me track a consistent slow pace and then it accelerated when we stopped paying close attention." He looked up. "It’s intelligent. It adjusts."
Nobody said anything for a moment.
"We leave today," Eve said.
Everyone looked at her.
"Not tomorrow. Not after we’ve prepared properly." She looked at each of them. "Today. We go to the Court today and we end this before it gets any closer."
"Eve," Damian said. "We’re not prepared. Raphael doesn’t know we’re coming. The formal arrangements...."
"Damian," she said.
He stopped.
She held his gaze.
"It touched me through the throne bond," she said. "At three in the morning. In your bed. In this estate." She paused. "If we wait for proper arrangements it will reach me again. Maybe not just a touch next time."
The kitchen was quiet.
Damian looked at Silas.
Silas looked at Eve.
"She’s right," Silas said. Simply.
Damon was already standing up. "I’ll pack."
She went to the backyard alone first.
The morning was cold. Grey sky. The grounds still and quiet around her.
She opened a small messenger portal, different from a travel portal, smaller, just wide enough to push a folded note through. Raphael had taught her this one early. The Court equivalent of a letter delivered instantly.
She wrote the note quickly.
We’re coming today. Varek reached me through the throne bond last night. We can’t wait. Have the throne room ready. Tell Seraphine. — E
She folded it.
Pushed it through.
The small portal closed.
On the other side of it somewhere in the Seraphim Court Raphael would feel it arrive. He would open it and read it and he would understand immediately.
She stood in the cold backyard for a moment.
The pull was there in her chest. Stronger this morning than it had ever been. Like the throne had felt Varek’s touch last night and was responding. Reaching back for her harder.
Come, it seemed to say.
Come now.
She went inside to pack.
Maya stopped her in the corridor.
Eve had been half expecting it.
Maya stood in front of her with her arms crossed and her jaw set and the expression she used when she’d already decided something and was informing Eve rather than asking.
"I’m coming," Maya said.
"Maya...."
"I’m coming Eve." She didn’t raise her voice. "Don’t argue with me."
Eve looked at her.
At the person who had packed a bag and waited in a corridor and stepped through a portal without hesitating and had been taken and had come back from that with herself completely intact.
"It’s going to be dangerous," Eve said.
"I know," Maya said.
"You’re human."
"I know that too," Maya said. "I’ve been human this whole time and it hasn’t stopped me yet."
Eve looked at her for a long moment.
"Stay with Vessa," she said. "The whole time. You don’t leave her side."
Maya’s shoulders dropped slightly with relief she was trying not to show.
"Deal," she said.
Vessa was in the sitting room when Eve came downstairs with her bag.
Already dressed. Already had her coat on. Her own bag at her feet.
Eve stopped in the doorway.
"You knew we’d leave today," Eve said.
"I felt it last night too," Vessa said. "From a distance but yes." She stood up. "I was packed by four."
Eve looked at her.
At the woman who had been carrying this for forty one years and was still here. Still standing. Still showing up.
"Let’s go," Eve said.
They assembled in the backyard at eight.
All of them.
Damian with his bag over his shoulder standing straight and ready. Damon beside him restless on his feet the way he always was before something big. Silas was calm. Vessa with her coat buttoned to the top. Maya with her bag and her jaw set and her eyes clear.
Eve stood in front of them.
Looked at every face.
These people.
Every single one of them had stood beside her through every room that had led to this moment. Every decision. Every impossible week. Every room she hadn’t been sure she’d walk out of.
She didn’t have words for what that meant.
She didn’t need them.
She turned to face the open space of the backyard.
Felt for the Court the way Raphael had taught her. Not just the location, the feeling of it. The specific pull of the supernatural realm, the weight of ancient stone and six hundred years of Seraphim history on the other side of the distance.
She reached.
Found the thread.
Pulled.
The portal opened.
Wider than her first one. Steadier than her second. The edges clean and even, the Court visible on the other side....stone corridor, familiar light, Raphael already standing there waiting.
He had gotten the message.
Of course he had.
Eve looked back once.
At the estate behind them. The grounds. The treeline. The home she had found at the end of a very long road.
She was coming back.
She was absolutely coming back.
She stepped through. ƒrēewebnovel.com
Raphael was in front of her before the portal finished closing.
He looked at her face the way he always looked at her face, reading everything immediately, filing it, understanding it.
"You felt it," she said.
"Last night," he said. "In the throne room. I felt something move through the space." He paused. "I should have sent word immediately."
"It’s okay," she said.
"It’s not," he said.
"Raphael." She held his gaze. "It’s okay. We’re here now."
He looked at her for a moment.
Then he looked at the people coming through the portal behind her. Damian. Damon. Silas. Vessa. Maya.
Something settled in his face.
"The throne room is clear," he said. "Seraphine knows you’re coming. She’ll meet us there." He paused. "Are you ready."
Eve felt the pull.
Warm and ancient and patient and waiting.
The pendant against her chest.
The photograph in her jacket pocket.
Both her parents with her.
"Yes," she said.
She meant it completely.
