Island Shifters: Book 03 - An Oath of the Children (24 page)

Elon heard the exchange and her face fell. It was obvious that she had been hoping
that
Jala knew where her charge was.

Suddenly, the cellar door slammed
shut, and she heard the sound of a bolt lock thrown closed.

Jala
sprinted past Kane up the stairs and
tried the door. “It’s locked! We’re trapped!” She
hurried
back down
into the cellar
and addressed the people. “We need shifters! How many shifters are here?”

“None,” Dallin answered.

“None?”

“The Ellvinians took the shifters
with them.
They were able to somehow, for lack of a better word,
sniff
them out. Then, they
persuaded
all of us to go along with their orders through song.
I can’t explain it any better than that.”

Jala held a hand up. “You don’t have to. I know
firsthand
what the Ellvinians are capable of.”

Haiden
Lind
rushed to Kane’s side. “Your Grace!
I should not be so bold, but I beg for your forgiveness in failing in my duty to you.”
The Royal Saber
fell to his
knee in front of Kane.

Kane
stood there with the
sword of Iserlohn clenched in his fist, his face an unreadable mask.

The silence tore at Haiden.
“Prince, you must forgive me,”
he
pleaded.
The Saber
moved his shoulders uneasily, and the entire cellar went
quiet as they waited to see what the Prince of Iserlohn would do.

Finally,
Haiden could not take any more and reached out to grab his Prince’s arm.

The moment he did, Kane
disappeared in a puff of smoke.

* * * * *

Kane crouched in a hidden alcove on the second floor of the mayor’s estate.
Through his shifted illusion, he ran with Jala down into the
root
cellar. He watched her reunite with her guard, Dallin Storm, but his eyes were
already scanning
the rest of the
faces. With relief, he found Haiden and Gregor
and Elon. Cora the cook was there, looking very angry. He
searched for Izzy or Alia, but neither was in the room.
Demon’s breath!
The watershifters were not there either. If they had been, they would
have been
very ill
by now
from being out of the water for so long.

He listened in to Dallin explain to Jala about the Ellvinians taking the shifters from the cellar.
What did they want with the shifters? It would make more sense to keep the most dangerous individuals locked up in the
cellar not the other way around.

“Prince!”

Haiden walked over to him and knelt.
Kane
wanted to reach out to him and tell
the Saber that there was no reason to apologize. He wanted to assure his protector that
he was not at fault for their separation, but
Kane
could not
tell him any of these
things.
It was just an illusion that the
people in the cellar
were looking at.

“Prince, you must forgive me.”
Haiden reached out to grab
Kane’s arm and the contact
destroyed his
shifted image. The
abrupt
release
from his magic
caused
Kane
to fall back
against
the wall
where he was crouched.

He rubbed his eyes
with the heels of his hands. He knew they were glowing fiercely
right now.
It would take a few moments for them to resume their normal—if you could ever
call his eyes
normal—golden color.

Now, more than ever, he realized the immediate danger the island was in. If the
Ellvinians
were successful in occupying Northfort, it would give them a strategic advantage in challenging the
royal seats of Bardot and Nysa next.

With Kirby and Kellan completely
enthralled by
the Ellvinians, Jala now confined to the cellars, and Izzy still missing, it
was up to him to figure out a way to stop them.

Then,
he swallowed as a sudden
realization
occurred to him.
Since becoming caught up in the tightening tentacles of subterfuge from the Ellvinians here in Northfort,
he neglected to remember
an important detail. His
parents
were sailing
directly
for
their
sinister
jaws.

C
HAPTER
18

T
HE
I
SLAND OF
E
LLVIN

“There it is!” Beck announced over shouted orders of Captain Wilden
that sent
sailors scrambling
up into the
rigging
to
manipulate the sails. “The island of Ellvin!”

Kiernan
squeezed his arm. “It’s beautiful.”

She was right. The water leading up to the island was a crystal clear turquoise so still it looked as though you could walk along its surface.
The port
city itself was
nestled in the midst of stunning white beaches
and mangrove trees.
Further inland
in the background
was a mountainous array of sea caves that
Beck guessed might
have
once been part of a large volcano.

“Hey, fireball! Why don’t you treat the Ellvinians to a display of your considerable talents?” Airron suggested.

Rogan crossed his arms at his chest and quickly shook his head. “No. We don’t
know how these people feel about magic. It is best to not flaunt it in their faces.”

“What are you saying? If the Ellvinians choose to seek aid from a magical island, my friend, then they are going to
see
magic.”

Kiernan turned away and stifled a chuckle as Airron began to peel off his clothes.

“Stop that right this instant, Airron Falewir!” Melania yelled at him.

Airron
ignored her as he
hopped on one foot
to
pull off
a
leather boot.

“Almost forty years and he still acts like a child,” Rogan groused.

“It is called fun, you little sourpuss, and it is something I have very little of these days. Oh, yes, I’m going in.”

Melania
continued to plead with her husband, but
it was no use. Airron was determined to bodyshift.

Janin laughed out loud when he finally managed to shed everything he had been wearing and jumped up onto
the ship’s railing stark naked.

“What a bloody fool,” Rogan murmured.

“Let him have his fun, Kal,” Janin admonished.

Airron
pointed a finger at Rogan.
“See! I
knew I liked your wife, torch, and now I know why. She’s brilliant!” With that,
the Elf
launched himself off the railing of the
dinoque
in a graceful dive into the tranquil blue ocean.

Beck looked over the side of the boat. The water was so clear that he could see Airron underneath the sea bodyshift into a dolphin.

Kiernan and Janin laughed at his antics while Rogan and Melania scowled. Beck watched on in good humor
as Airron leapt in and out of the water, but his thoughts were now on this visit to
Ellvin and completing their business as quickly as possible so he could get home to his family.

Captain Wilden took a moment from his
critical
watch over the sailors to
approach
Beck. “Your Grace. You better
call
the bodyshifter back on board. We
have been given the signal to come ashore.”

“Very well. Thank you, Captain. Will you be joining us on the island?”

The Captain’s leathery face crinkled up into a smile. “I am a seaman, Your Grace. We will stay on the ship if that is acceptable to you. Never know when we might need a hasty retreat,” he said with a wink.

Beck smiled. “I don’t think we have anything to worry about here, Captain, but the choice is yours.”

The Ship Captain bowed at the waist and went back to his duty.

Beck looked over the side again wondering how he was going to get Airron’s attention, but it turned out he did not need to. Beck ducked as the dolphin jumped straight into the air and landed on the deck.
The gray mammal
flapped around for a moment and made a strange keening noise before Airron shifted back.

Melania threw her cloak at him. “Hurry and get dressed. We’re almost there.”

“That’s what your worried about, isn’t it?
You don’t want the ladies to see me
naked!”

“It
has
been awhile,” Janin commented to Kiernan.

“Over a year now
and
I’ve thought of little else,”
Kiernan teased.

“You’re not helping me here,” Melania scolded
the wives, hands on her hips.

Airron laughed and got to his feet. He unabashedly let the cloak fall from him as he picked his clothes
up off
the deck and walked behind one of the wooden food crates to dress.

Beck
shook his head and turned back to watch the sailors expertly maneuver the ship to
a
dock that extended far out into the ocean.
Ellvinian port workers rushed forward to assist the crew and while
Beck
waited for the gangplank to be lowered,
he
gazed toward shore and the large throng of people that awaited them there. Hundreds of Ellvinians shouted and waved excitedly. A smaller group of five
Elves
stood before the crowd, and
Beck assumed they were the higher-ranking Ellvinians.

Before departing, he had a lengthy conversation with Lars Kingsley and knew something of the Ellvinians’ style of dress and physical appearance. Dark elves, Lars called them.
The only question in Beck’s mind was whether
or not
the darkness was confined to the outside.

* * * * *

“What do you mean it’s missing?” the Premier hissed at his Adjunct.

The small Elf drew him
away from the committee waiting to receive the Massan
representatives. “The Vypir is nowhere to be found, Your Eminence. The glass of the observation room was found completely shattered and the Vypir gone.”

“How could it get out of there? I thought that was reinforced glass?
Unbreakable
, the technicians assured me.” He thought back to all of those times he stood at that
very window thinking he was safe.

The Adjunct gulped nervously. “Since kill…I mean, draining the watershifters, the Vypir has grown extremely strong. We looked everywhere for it and cannot—”

Hendrix turned his back on the disembarking guests and grabbed the Adjunct by the throat. He knew that some of the people in the crowd could see him, but his control snapped. “If you looked
everywhere
, Adjunct, you would have found it.
Now,
how
in the Netherworld am I going to get my blood? Tell me!” He pointed behind him. “More magic users
may be
getting off that ship
at this very moment
and I have no way to extract
their blood!” His eyes narrowed dangerously. “I should kill you for this.”

“Aye, Your Eminence,” the Adjunct managed to say around his constricted windpipe.

“Fortunately for you, I still need you. You will, however, kill the technician that allowed this to happen.”

The Adjunct nodded, no longer able to speak.

Hendrix let go of the man’s throat and his hands began to shake. “I need it, Adjunct.
I
need
the blood.”

The Adjunct placed his hands on his throat. “I’ll find the Vypir,” he said hoarsely.