Exile (Keeper of the Lost Cities) (10 page)

Moving
was so not going to be possible.

After what felt like an hour, but was probably only a few seconds, Sophie managed to get a white-knuckled grip on Silveny’s mane, coiling the ends around her wrists for extra support. With her panic at a slightly more manageable level, she realized they were circling the top of the domed enclosure.
Silveny was flying low enough to avoid the thick purple bars, but Sophie ducked anyway.

“Here, Silveny,” Grady called, running into the enclosure and holding out a handful of swizzlespice. “Come down for a treat.”

Silveny ignored him. Apparently, terrifying her only friend was better than snacks.

“Order her to land,” Sandor called.

“Working on it!” Sophie shouted back.

She took a deep breath, forcing her mind to relax as she transmitted images of them standing on the ground.
Down.

Silveny nickered.
Fly.

Down.

Fly.

Down!

Fly!

DOWN!

FLY!

Silveny’s mood turned giddy over this new game and Sophie wondered just how much trouble she’d be in if she strangled the obnoxious horse once they were back on solid ground.

Silveny veered to the left, sending Sophie flailing right. Grady and Sandor gasped, but before Sophie lost her balance Silveny’s wing tipped her back into place. When the same thing happened three more times, Sophie realized what Silveny was trying to tell her.

You want me to trust you?

Trust,
Silveny repeated, though Sophie wondered if she
really
grasped the concept. Especially since she started flying faster, with more twists and turns than any roller coaster would ever—could ever—have.

Easy!
she ordered, sending images of straight, slow flying.

“Don’t panic, Sophie.” Grady called. “I’m going to get you down!”

Sophie glanced below, where a group of gnomes had entered the enclosure and were helping him uncoil a thick silver lasso.

“Don’t!” she screamed, imagining Silveny turning bucking bronco in the air.

“It’s okay, I know what I’m doing.”

Somehow she doubted that. “I can get her to come down on my own.”

“You’ve got one more minute!” he shouted back. “Then I’m dragging you down.”

Being hog-tied to a terrified alicorn and yanked from the sky was definitely not on Sophie’s Things I Want To Do list.

Silveny, please. Take. Me. Down!

She transmitted more images of her standing on the ground, all of which Silveny ignored.

Scared,
Sophie said, trying a different tactic. But Silveny didn’t seem to understand the concept, flipping them in a series of loops.

“Hang on,” Grady called, and Sophie heard the unmistakable swish of a rope slicing through the air.

Take us down!
The transmission mixed with so much fear and panic it felt like a cold blast when it left her mind.

Silveny screeched, tucked her wings, and dropped from the sky like a missile.

Sophie squealed and braced for impact. But at the last possible second Silveny leveled off and touched down, stopping so abruptly it sent Sophie tumbling forward.

By some miracle she managed to land on her feet, but her legs were shaking and her head was spinning so fast, she stumbled and collapsed.

Right into a pile of alicorn manure.

T
HIS
IS WHO WE’RE TRUSTING
with the most important creature on our planet?” a sharp voice barked as Sophie flailed in the stinky waste—which was surprisingly glittery. Apparently, she’d found the one thing sparkles
didn’t
make better.

And if she weren’t already nauseous from the wild flight and the gagging smell of manure, the sound of that voice would’ve done it.

Sophie wiped the shimmering poop off her cheek as she stood to face not just Bronte—a smallish elf with cropped brown hair and features as sharp as his voice—but the entire elvin Council in full regal garb, standing just outside the enclosure.

Sophie dipped an ungraceful curtsy and stared at their circlets, each encrusted with different-colored jewels to match their elegant capes. She tried to remember their names, but it was hard when they weren’t in front of their conveniently labeled thrones in Tribunal Hall. She could only recognize five of them.

Two goblin bodyguards flanked the group on each side, and next to the closest one stood Alden, his lips twitching with the smile he was fighting back.

“Yes, Bronte,” Alden said, offering Sophie a silky handkerchief from a pocket in his navy blue cape. “And Sophie is more than worthy of the task. Though clearly we’ve caught her in the middle of some excitement.”

Sophie’s face burned as she moved closer and reached through the purple bars to accept the handkerchief. The stench followed her with every step, and all the silky cloth did was smear the filth more.

“So, you can fly with Silveny?” Alden asked, a hint of awe in his voice.

“Apparently,” Grady answered for her as he exited the enclosure and approached the Councillors. He inclined his head in a slight bow. “To what do we owe this honor?”

“I know we come unannounced,” Councillor Emery—the spokesman for the Council—said in his deep, booming voice. His eyes were the same shade as the sapphires covering his circlet and his shoulder-length hair was almost as dark as his skin.
“We were eager to see this remarkable discovery for ourselves.”

The others murmured in agreement, their eyes glued to Silveny, who was preening the feathers on her glistening wings, looking gleaming and majestic and without a single fleck of poop on her anywhere. Sophie started plotting revenge.

“Can you really communicate with her?” Kenric asked. With his vivid red hair and wide shoulders he was the easiest to recognize—and one of Sophie’s favorite members of the Council, thanks to his warm smile.

“Not only can they communicate,” Grady answered for her, “but Sophie discovered this morning that Silveny can transmit to her—even when she’s trying to block her.”

Several Councillors gasped.

Alden frowned. “Most curious.”

“Indeed,” Councillor Terik said, sweeping back his wavy brown hair. Sophie remembered him from their private consultation a few months back. He was a Descryer—able to sense and interpret potential—and the Council had ordered him to take a reading of her. Unfortunately, all he’d felt was “something strong” and hadn’t been able to translate what it meant.

“How did you find her?” he asked, his cobalt blue eyes focused so intently on Sophie she felt like he was trying to take another reading.

“It was kind of an accident,” she admitted. She explained how she’d followed Silveny’s thoughts, assuming they came from the sasquatch.

Silveny trotted to her side as she spoke, and Sophie pretended not to see her, not ready to forgive her for the manure situation.

“Incredible,” Councillor Terik breathed as Silveny nudged Sophie, refusing to be ignored. “Our long-lost elf, and the most searched-for creature on the planet, stumbling across each other in the middle of a forest in the Forbidden Cities. It’s almost impossible to believe there were no other forces at play. Especially when you consider the unique connection the two appear to have. It seems unlikely that it happened purely by chance.”

Councillor Emery cleared his throat. “Are you implying that someone
intended
for Sophie to find the alicorn?”

His words seemed to swell in Sophie’s mind.

She stared into Silveny’s watery brown eyes. Eyes that were almost the same color as hers. Eyes that stared back at her with an intensity and intelligence like no other animal she’d ever encountered. Eyes that belonged to an animal who could break through her mental blocking in ways even elves couldn’t.

Had she been
led
by the Black Swan specifically to find her?

“It’s impossible,” Oralie’s fragile voice announced, shattering the silence everyone had fallen into. The blond beauty in a cape and circlet the same soft pink as her rosy cheeks shook her head as she stepped forward and added, “No one could orchestrate such a feat. Not even the Black Swan.”

“Oralie’s right,” Kenric agreed. “We’ve been searching for another alicorn for decades.”

“Centuries,” Alden corrected. “Without even the slightest hint that another might exist. Are you suggesting the Black Swan has been
hiding
Silveny all this time, risking that the other alicorn would expire before they could reproduce?”

“When you put it that way, it does sound rather absurd,” Councillor Terik admitted. “But surely you can agree that it’s a stunning coincidence. Especially considering that this completely resets the timeline.”

“What does that mean?” Sophie asked, squirming as all eyes turned back to her.

“Hasn’t anyone educated this child in the fundamental principles of our world?” Bronte shook his head so dramatically that his Ancient ears wiggled.

Elvin ears turned pointy as they aged, which meant prominent points like Bronte’s were a sign of wisdom and experience. But to Sophie they looked far too much like the cheap costume ears she used to see humans wear when they pretended to be elves. Usually paired with tights and shoes with bells on the toes.

“Councillor Terik was referring to the Timeline to Extinction,” Alden said, reminding Sophie that there were more important things to think about than pointy ears. “With only one alicorn in our care, and no guarantee that we’d ever find another, we’ve been facing the very real possibility that this majestic species would someday go extinct.”

He whispered the last word, like it was too horrible to say
at full volume. The elves believed that every creature on earth existed for a reason, and to let one die off would cause irreversible damage to the planet’s delicate balance. That was why they’d built the Sanctuary and worked so hard to protect and conserve the creatures humans thought were either myths or lost.

“But now all of that has changed,” Councillor Terik added quietly. “
Everything
has changed.”

“Indeed it has,” Councillor Emery agreed. “And it couldn’t have happened at a better time. This is exactly the kind of discovery that will restore calm and order to our world. The symbol of hope and stability we’ve been waiting for.”

Silveny nudged Sophie again, filling the air with her rancid breath. Sophie couldn’t believe such a stinky, stubborn creature was so important.

“All the more reason why the alicorn’s care should be entrusted to experts. Look at her!”

Sophie’s cheeks flamed as Bronte pointed a bony finger at her sparkly poop-covered clothes.

“We are looking,” Councillor Emery replied. “The alicorn trusts her completely.”

“And Edaline and I are here to help her,” Grady added. “We have years of experience.”

Bronte snorted. “Two of our world’s most scandalous misfits—oh yes, I feel
much
better. Need I remind you that mere months ago the Ruewen name was uttered only with
ridicule and scorn? How many years have you isolated yourself at this estate—letting the rumors spread of your madness without bothering to deny them?” He turned to face the Councillors. “And how can we forget the day he stood before us and dared to accuse us of neglectful rulership before renouncing his title as Emissary? What right does he have to demand our trust—especially now, when our every decision is being scrutinized by a disconcerted public?”

Sophie fidgeted in the deafening silence that followed.

She’d known that most of the elves had thought Grady and Edaline were weird—she’d heard plenty of gossip when she was first assigned to live with them. But they’d pulled away from everyone because they’d lost their
only
daughter
—and had to care for Brant—in a world where almost no one knew how to relate to their grief.

Couldn’t the Council understand that?

“Things have changed, Bronte,” Alden said quietly. “We’ve all seen the transformation in Grady and Edaline since Sophie came to live with them. And with—”

“Oh, we have, have we?” Bronte interrupted. “Granted, they leave the house a bit more—though several of those times were merely to attend Miss Foster’s Tribunals.”

Sophie cringed at the word.

“But they still avoid participating in regular society. And hasn’t Grady repeatedly turned down our request that he return to his position as Emissary—a position that would greatly aid
in our efforts to stop the organization that seeks to harm a member of his own family?”

Another moment of awkward silence passed, and this time Councillor Emery rubbed his temples, probably moderating telepathic discussions between the Councillors. Sophie had a feeling she knew what questions they must be asking. The same ones she’d been trying not to ask herself these last few weeks.

Why
wouldn’t
Grady become an Emissary again?

Didn’t he
want
to help them catch her kidnappers?

“Bronte does raise an interesting point, Grady,” Councillor Emery finally said. “It would do much to instill public confidence in our decision to let Sophie rehabilitate the alicorn if you reclaim your title as Emissary. Would you be willing to accept the appointment?”

Say yes
, Sophie thought, wishing she could transmit the words but not daring to interfere.
Please say yes.

Maybe if Grady had looked in her eyes, he would’ve seen the hope she was hiding. But he didn’t look at her—or anyone—as he folded his arms and said the word that felt like a slap to Sophie’s heart.

“No.”

W
HY NOT?”

It took Sophie a second to realize the question had come from her, and another after that to decide she wasn’t sorry for asking.

Grady shook his head, his eyes pleading with her to drop it. But she wasn’t letting him off that easy.

“Why don’t you want to help the Council?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to help them, Sophie. It’s just . . . complicated.”