will not let anything happen to you,” Jovian said.
“I know what Father charged you with is important to you, Jovian, and that you take it very seriously. However, you were watching over me before and I still got abducted. I’m not trying to be mean — I’m only stating that there are things out there which you can’t foresee, and forces that you cannot fight. I fully appreciate the immensity of what we face now, more than ever before. I no longer hold you to any vows Father made you take.”
“All the same, I still won’t let anything harm you,” Jovian said.
Joya smiled. “Thank you.” She sighed heavily and plastered a pleasant look on her face despite the emotions running through her. The act made the muscles in her cheek and eye spasm erratically from the touch of the one who had held her captive. Joya whimpered and held her hands to her face so that the others would not see the loss of control over her muscles. The constant mind raping from the verax-acis and the horrible visions he planted in her mind had bad side effects.
“So,” Joya proclaimed after a few moments of warring with her spasmodic muscles to bring them in accord. “I think we should not go home as Grace suggested, and instead finish our original quest. We have the medallion, which was only part of the quest; we still need to find Amber.”
“This is true,” Maeven spoke up from where the horses were tied. They had found the beasts some ways from the Mirror of the Moon, lost and confused without their masters. Maeven looked out to where the threat came from. The hair on his head had grown out more now, and was more than the stubble it had once been. It now stood on end in odd angles held there by days on the road. Jovian noticed, not unpleasantly, that Maeven also had quite a bit of facial hair.
“So where do we think she’s headed?” Joya asked, her words distorted by a large yawn.
“Home,” Angelica and Jovian spoke at the same time.
“How can we be sure though?” Joya asked.
“Where else does she have to go?” Jovian replied.
“True, but Jovian, you know Amber — there is untold chaos hunting for her even as we speak, hunting all of us, and do you think she would lead that home?” Joya asked watching the two of them.
“I’m not sure. We have chaos hunting us as well and we’re headed home.” Angelica stated.
“Besides, when we were in the Mirror of the Moon we saw a glimpse of the past,” Jovian said quietly.
“You saw the past?” Joya asked. She didn’t sound completely surprised. Joya knew that Angelica and Jovian had seen the future a few times, and figured it was to do with their angelic blood, though it wasn’t a talent she shared.
“Yes,” Angelica said. “Amber had been held in one of the tower rooms, and we saw an imprint of what had transpired there. She said that she had to escape, and head … home, I presume. The vision faded out not long after that. She was hesitant about saying where she was going, as if the walls themselves would have heard her plans.”
“They most likely would have,” Joya remarked.
“I can only think of one place she would go that she would want to keep safe,” Jovian said.
“Of course, she would probably want to keep any place she is going to secret, so she would be safe from her abductors,” Maeven pointed out.
“In her current state,” Joya said, “she is her own protection.” This alluded to the wyrd their older sisters had coursing through them, the sorcery of the LaFaye bloodline. “Also, so soon out of her trials she could also be a nightmare visited upon the plantation if something goes wrong.”
“Grace did say that it seemed she had been pulled out of her elemental trials,” Jovian agreed. “That might have poisoned her mind.”
“That may be, but I think the best plan we have at the moment is still Grace’s. After all, with the Well of Wyrding acting as it is, her wyrd is most likely as unpredictable as everyone else’s. I say we