I find the gate again? Do I just drink from the stream?”
Pietre laughed. “Hardly. This is the difficult part for you, boy. The gate moves around. It does not open in the same spot twice in succession. For finding it…
wel , the simplest way is to fol ow a dragon, but who knows when another one of those wil show up?”
The werewolf took a step forward. “There must be something we can do.”
Pietre shrugged. “You think so? I waited hundreds of years before Sophie came along, and then she waited fifty for the dragon. Perhaps you wil have better luck with pure chance than I did, which is why I have told you that much, but I am hardly betting on it.”
Fal on clenched his fist. “We don’t have that time to wait.”
“Wait, don’t wait. It is nothing to me.”
“Wel , at least you won’t be here to see it happen,” Fal on declared, reaching for his fal en stake.
Pietre had been expecting it though, and by now, his resources were at a much more acceptable level. He wove his hands through the air, wrapping shadows around himself even as the boy turned. In just a few strides, he was into the trees, though the master vampire couldn’t resist one final taunt.
“I wil watch your progress with interest.”
Chapter 3
Briony stood open mouthed at the sight of her great-aunt, who now looked more like an older sister thanks to the transformation that had come over her.
And not much older at that. One moment she had simply been Aunt Sophie, the next moment, her true Hugtandalfer nature had shone through, leaving her as this beautiful, youthful, fanged creature of the fey.
“Aunt Sophie?” Briony asked, even though she knew it was stil her.
“It’s her,” Archer the dragon-shifter assured her.
Aunt Sophie concurred. At least, the older girl smiled. “It’s stil me. This is just… I guess you could think of it as the real me. Or at least the real me now that I’ve come into my powers.”
The fanged-elf man beside them, Aunt Sophie’s father, inclined his head graceful y. “And you look lovely, my daughter. But now, we must hurry to the King. He wil want to see his daughter, and we should not delay.”
“My father is really the King?” Briony asked.
“You aren’t joking?”
“Your father, is the King of al the woodland elves,” Aunt Sophie’s father said.
“Sorry,” Briony said. “Do you have a name? I can’t just keep thinking of you as Aunt Sophie’s dad.”
“I am Leytham. My brother is Waltham.” The fanged elf gestured to a path leading from the meadow they stood in. “We must go to him now.”
They walked, making their way through woodland that was like that of home, and yet somehow not like it. It was too bright, too vibrant, the path lined on both sides with flowers that should not have been able to thrive in the shadows of the trees, yet which did anyway.
Leytham walked at the front of their group, leading the way. Archer, in his form of a tal , golden-skinned boy with almost white hair, brought up the rear. Briony kept close to Aunt Sophie between them.
There were things that she needed to know, and that she hoped her great-aunt would tel her before they arrived.
“Why is al this happening now?” Briony asked.
“Why am I changing? It is just time.”
“No, I mean… wel , why didn’t anyone tel me about this before? Why am I here now, when my…”
she wasn’t ready to cal him that yet, “when the King could have sent for me at any time?”
Ahead of them, Leytham sighed. He kept walking as he spoke. “My brother is not wel . As a people, the Hugtandalfer live for a very long time by human standards, but we are not immortal. We age, even if we do not show it. We die. Our king is one of the oldest of us now, and I fear he wil not live much longer. He needs an heir.”
Briony got that straight away. “I’m supposed to be that heir? I’m supposed to step into the throne, just like that? Isn’t there someone else?”
Leytham shrugged, turning back to them.
“There is Prince Vigor.”
“There then,” Briony said. “You have a prince.
And from the name, he sounds like he should be perfect. You don’t need… hold on, does this mean I have another brother now?”
“Not precisely,” Leytham said, “and that is part of the problem. Vigor is not truly of my brother’s blood, even if he i s a ful