At her nod, Zael dashed out of the chamber. He ran to his friend’s personal office in the council building, but the elder was nowhere to be seen.
As Zael stepped out, Tamisia nearly crashed into him in the passageway.
He could barely contain his rage. “Get out of my way, Sia. If you know what’s good for you, get as far away from me as you can right now.”
“Zael, I’m sorry.” Her face collapsed in what appeared to be a damned good imitation of remorse. “I didn’t know.”
He halted, too suspicious to ignore her, no matter how viciously he vibrated with the need to explode. To rage. To punish.
But he couldn’t blame anyone for how he felt about Brynne.
He couldn’t condemn the council for their decision to disapprove of what he felt for her—even if that decision held the power to destroy his life.
“What didn’t you know, Sia?”
She shook her head, misery in her eyes. “Elyon. He came to me last night, outraged after spying on you and Brynne down at the cottage.”
Anger boiled through Zael. “He was there? That son of a bitch was there on that beach?” A curse erupted off his tongue. “You’re telling me that Elyon was skulking around, peering in windows while Brynne and I made love?”
And while she drank from him.
The most intimate moments they had ever shared together, and Elyon had invaded their sanctity like a goddamned thief. He’d cheapened a private, sacred experience and wielded it as a weapon.
“He’s crazy, Zael.” Tamisia shivered as she said it. “He’s been talking about the two of us returning to the realm together, but I never wanted that. He wouldn’t let it go. That’s why I asked you to help me leave.”
Zael cursed. “You should have told me why, Sia. You should have told someone, damn it.”
“I know.” Her regret was obvious. As was her fear. “He was furious to see you arrive here with talk of an alliance with the Order. I think he’ll do anything to prevent that from happening.”
Zael’s mind was churning. He reflected back on the sentry who had once been among Selene’s most loyal soldiers. Elyon had been an Atlantean patriot before the fall of the realm. Had his loyalty remained secretly intact all this time?
Worse, could that loyalty now turn him against the colony as a whole?
From what Tamisia was saying, the answer seemed obvious.
A cold foreboding settled on Zael as he considered Elyon’s betrayal of him. If the sentry was willing to do anything to stop the alliance, then he wouldn’t be willing to stand by and let the council thwart him by giving Zael a chance to repair the damage.
“Where’s Nethilos?”
Tamisia shook her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the council adjourned.”
“Damn it.” Zael started walking again. “If you see him, tell him he could be in danger. Tell him I need to speak to him at once.”
She nodded. “I will.”
As he strode through the council building, Zael slowed his thoughts down, centering his focus on the energy that lived in every Atlantean. He searched for his friend using his mind and his senses.
He couldn’t locate him.
Holy hell.
If his old friend was in possible danger from Elyon, what about the crystal?
The colony kept their power source in the top floor of the building he was in now. Zael teleported there, disappearing in a burst of light, then materializing in the chamber that held the colony’s Atlantean crystal.
He got there just in time to find Nethilos lying in a pool of blood on the floor of the chamber. His head was severed from his body, having come to rest next to a gore-streaked, long Atlantean blade. The kind Zael and the rest of his legion comrades used to carry.
Ah, fuck. He recoiled at the grisly sight of his peace-minded friend. The savagery of Nethilos’s killing rocked Zael, but he pushed down his horror and pain so he didn’t lose his grasp on the lethal fury that boiled up on him.