Choosing to say out of the Alliance, the Cinders are isolated in their own conflicts, and when Helia Cinder reaches to the void for answers, she inadvertently draws a creature out. Expecting to be eaten alive, she is instead left with a man with no...
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Wren arrived in the desert with Kopje by his side, both wrapped in cloaks to shield them from the sands, and they obscured his sight as he swept the area. A Sol should have been here to greet them. Sometimes it was a general, more often than not, Shan, but no dark magic announced a Sol's presence. This was the first checkpoint into the maze of transportation spells that led to the Sol castle. If it was open then it put their house in danger even if a stranger would never be able to discern the path through without a Sol's help. Wren could only navigate them solo because his Sol magic told him where the barriers weakened. In that way, he navigated the path with Kopje following him closely, knowing just as well as he did that something was amiss.
Not a single man met them in the sands, and by the time Wren took the final transportation spell into his home, he was ready to blow off the skull of any aggressor who appeared. Something was wrong or Tala would have never withdrawn all their forces to the castle. Wren expected to fight for his life as soon as he arrived in the greeting room, yet, there, no one showed their face as well, welling a cold hole in his heart as he reached his magic for his mate's. The Sol magic was so thin within the castle that near all of his people were gone. For them to have fled this quickly than something disastrous must have happened.
Kopje stood ready to defend his back as Wren flushed his power into the room, reaching and searching the corridors for any foreign entities. Instead, it collided with Talamayas magic, and Wren let out a breath of relief as his mate progressed to the greeting hall at a slow trot. The lack of urgency meant everyone was okay, but Shan was not with him, which meant he was wherever the rest of the Sol men were. Talamayas was alone.
"Wren," Tala greeted him with the permanent smirk plastered on his face, his desire to have Wren close filling the room with the heat of his flame magic. There must not be enough immediate danger to have his mate tense, but it didn't explain the emptiness around them.
"Tala, what is going on here?" Wren asked, his relief at seeing Tala well buffering his frustration that no one had been sent to inform him of the happenings. As an equal head of his house with Talamayas, Wren should have been kept apprised of anything pertinent enough to empty the castle.
"Easier to show you than explain," Talamayas said, his smile sinking as he dropped a warm hand to Wren's back and ushered him forward. A frustrated sigh pushed from Wren's lips when Talamayas didn't explain, but he went with him. Talamayas was poor with words as it was, so if he wasn't talking, then he didn't know what words to use.
Kopje kept their back protected as they progressed, still not sold on the safety of the situation, and Wren gave him an appreciative nod as he continued on with them. They descended a few levels until they reached the guest quarters, though few came here for R & R. Mostly nomads or Tala's close allies used the rooms. At the moment, Phoenix occupied the master guest suite as he worked through one Song at a time to ease the specter population of the castle. That was a feat in itself, but Lieder Song, an old friend of Wren's who'd spent a deal of time with him in the dungeons before passing, was working with Phoenix to help his people find peace.
