Jeri stepped into the room and then moved to stand beside the door.
“Are we here for a meeting or a dance?” Karma whispered.
“Meeting.” Jeri looked around. The room was ornate, making her wish she’d worn something fancier than jeans.
“Okay, fill me in on who is who in this room.”
Jeri watched Trendan go over to the end of the room and talk to a man with black hair that was shaved at the sides. She didn’t know who he was, but he was scary. She looked around. She hadn’t expected so many people. There had to be close to fifty in the room. “I don’t know everyone.” She motioned to the group standing near each other. “All the really big ones are Alterealm royalty or their guards.”
“That one guy is huge. He’s a guard, right? He doesn’t look snobby enough to be royalty.” Karma whispered.
“We’re not all snobby.” Someone said from behind them.
Jeri turned around quickly to see King Chase and his queen, Alona, standing there.
He smiled at them. “Quite the turnout.” He looked around the room and then to his mate. “You’re okay? The baby?”
Alona placed her hand on her swollen abdomen. “The baby is either doing gymnastics or kung fu fighting right now.”
Chase grinned. “Knowing this family, it’s both.” He straightened and held his elbow out. “Shall we make our entrance, duchess?”
Alona shook her head but took his elbow. “Yes. Let’s.” She grinned at Jeri as they walked by.
“And that was?”
“King Chase, Queen Alona,” Jeri said.
“Ah, I’ve heard he’d give prince crazy a run for his money.”
As if on cue, Bastian came through the doors, stopped and looked around, and then zeroed in on Trendan and made fast work of heading to him.
Nova came into the room and watched him. She looked worried.
“Is everything all right?” Jeri looked at Bastian and then back to her.
“Yes. We just ran into Elyas in the hall.”
“Elyas?” Jeri didn’t know who that was.
“Bastian and Trendan’s older brother.”
Jeri looked at the door. “Oh.”
“I’m going to go hang out with the cool kids,” Karma said.
Jeri noticed she pointed to the Alterealm princesses. “Behave.”
“Don’t worry. I already got the lecture from Capri that I was to curse no one, no matter how much they deserve it.” She rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t do that at my first royal gathering—maybe my second, but I need to see who can zap my butt first and steer clear of them.” She smiled and then walked away.
“Excuse me.”
Jeri and Nova turned to see a man standing in the doorway.
“Elyas.” Nova glanced over her shoulder to where Bastian and Trendan were.
Both men saw him and started walking toward the door.
“I’m going to say this is not a meeting I’ve been invited to.” He stood stiff. “Judging by the expressions on my brothers’ faces.”
Jeri didn’t look to see what their expressions were. She was too taken with this man’s soul. It was old. That part didn’t surprise her as he was Trendan’s older brother. The part that had her placing her hand over the stone resting beneath her collarbone was the fact that his soul was mourning loudly. He’d lost someone. She sucked in a breath and then glanced away and blew it out. He’d lost his other. Only a connection that strong could cause that kind of pain. She met Trendan’s curious look as they reached them but looked away and back at his brother.
“Elyas.” Trendan put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Father and Sigor both agree that your presence may not be the best idea.”
“I gathered as much.”
Jeri’s heart was aching for this man. There were areas of his soul she didn’t understand, but she could see him with a woman beside a river, and they looked so happy. Did she offer condolences? She wasn’t sure. He may not want to be reminded, although, with the wailing of his soul, there was no way he could forget.
She glanced away to see Trendan was watching her. He knew she was seeing his brother’s soul. She bit her lip. He had never asked her, so there was no way for him to know that she didn’t choose to see. It happened no matter what.
“I’ll come by to speak to you after this,” Trendan told his sibling.
“Yes. You know where to find me.” Elyas said with his eyes downcast like he was a scolded child.
“If you think of any more details, we could use that information,” Bastain told him.
“Yes.” Elyas nodded but didn’t look at anyone. “I will ponder it further and write anything down that seems relevant.”
“Okay. Good. We’ll talk later.” Bastian went over and opened the door, and waited until a very dejected man walked back out.
“That was depressing,” Bastain mumbled and walked away.
Jeri turned to look at Trendan. “He’s lost someone.”
Trendan cocked his head to the side. “You saw that? He said he wasn’t…”
“His soul is mourning, and I saw him with a woman that he loved very much.” She inhaled slowly and willed her eyes not to leak. Now was not the time to do that.
“Mourning? It happened so long—” He blew out a breath and looked at the door. “I hadn’t realized.”
“Why isn’t he welcome here?” She motioned to the others.
Trendan stepped closer, his hand out, and then stopped, an amused look on his face. “Perhaps you should take that off here.” He pointed to her pendant. “I wouldn’t want you to shock my mother, the queen.’
“Oh.” Jeri hurriedly took it off and put it in her pocket. “I forgot.”
“It’s fine.” He took her elbow and gently steered her to the corner. “Elyas was involved in helping the lawless faction…”
“Lawless faction?”
“Dark-souled ones.” He said quickly. “They used his other against him. It was a long time ago, but he didn’t know how to bring her here because…”
“No one knew you could have others outside of Solrelm.”
“Yes.”
She searched his face and could see the despondent look in his eyes and the shame. She wanted to hug him but knew that might not be an acceptable thing to do when the room was filled with so many. “Oh, Trendan…”
“He’s given us a lot of information to find the fathers, but he doesn’t know who is in charge or which of ours are involved.”
“She died?”
“Yes. Giving birth to their child. He wasn’t there, so he doesn’t know what became of her soul…”
“Oh.” She put her hand over her mouth and then turned so her back was to the room because stopping the tears wasn’t going to be easy this time. “He’s never been allowed to mourn.” She said softly. “I saw him by a river. You should take him there and let the man mourn without being watched by a whole realm because he’s a prince.” She sniffled and cursed her stupid soft heart.
“Are you all right?” His hand rested on her shoulder.
She nodded. “Yes. Just emotional from what I saw.” She blew out a breath, wiped her eyes, and then turned around. “It comes with the territory sometimes.” She smiled but could tell by the assessing look on his face that he wasn’t buying it.
“That’s a good idea. Taking him there. I feel like—” He waved his hand around. “—I should have known what was happening with him, and maybe, I don’t know, Bas and I could have…”
“It’s not your fault.” She touched his arm. “Fate does things for reasons—it’s just hard to see through the feelings and figure them out sometimes.”
His gaze moved over her face for several seconds. “Will you help me find the place? Was there anything you could use as a reference to find it?”
“I’ll think about what I saw and…’
“All right, everyone. If we could take our seats.” King Troy’s voice was easily heard over all the conversations.
Trendan stiffened and stood at his full height again. “We’ll discuss it after this.”
“Okay. I’d like more time with your brother too. See if I can find the same place exactly.”
He offered a small smile. “We can do that.”