Pickup Styx Read Online Free PDF Page B

apart like your father did. We need you.”
    “Careful, Sebastian,” I warned. I was in no mood to take advice from traitors. “I still haven’t decided what to do with you.”
    He folded his hands behind his back—his usual stance. “I know things haven’t been the same between us, but I do want what is best for the kingdom. I always have. I hope you can trust that.”
    “Wanting what you think is best and being willing to do what I think is best are two different things.”
    Sebastian met my eyes directly. “The choices I made were for both of you. I enabled what neither of you could do on your own. You could never have given her up nor could she have left you. Yes, I helped Selene maneuver you into a position where you were forced to act, but it was the only way to help you get past your own emotional barriers against a change that was inevitable. You father had clouded your judgment.”
    “You can weave whatever tale around it you want. Betrayal is betrayal.”
    “Ensuring you and Selene could be together is betrayal?” He raised an eyebrow. “Yet now she is the most important thing in your life? You can’t have it both ways.”
    I didn’t have time for this argument with Sebastian, but my simmering resentment wouldn’t let me walk away. “How many times did you look me in the eye and lie to my face? You are not here to decide what is best for me. You are here to present me with all the options. You were supposed to be my advisor.”
    “Would you have left her?”
    “No.”
    “Would you have taken a stand against your father?”
    I glared at him. Being betrayed and made to look like a fool was bad enough. Sebastian being right was insufferable. “I guess we will never know.” I started for the door. “You were my friend, Sebastian, and I trusted you. I won’t make that mistake again.”
     

     
    Massive trees towered around me, blocking out the light with their thick canopy. I hadn’t set foot in the Smaragdine Forest since the day I imprisoned my father there. It was the land of my mother’s people and the only place I trusted to hold my father. With its ancient magic, they could keep him without causing him harm or discomfort. I approached the small home that housed him. I didn’t see the guard I’d assigned in case the magic failed. A knot of worry formed below my ribs. Within ten feet of the door, still nothing happened to prevent me from approaching. I quickened my pace, my senses on high alert. Every creak, every shuffle of leaves filtered through my ears. The hum of the magic that should have been surrounding the house was missing. The mossy, rich smell of the forest didn’t betray outsiders except for me. The ground around the house hadn’t been traveled on for weeks. I opened the door to nothing. No magical kickback, no people, just silence.
    “Fuck.”
    I headed for the diminishing clan of forest elves who still lived here. They were the direct descendants of the high elves. Having Adan’s support, as well as being my mother’s son, I thought their loyalty couldn’t be compromised, but obviously I’d been wrong. With every step I took, my anger transformed into cool rage. Crossing the Erlking was a mistake they wouldn’t make twice.
    The community was just as empty as the cabin. Everyone had disappeared. I searched through the homes. Meals were half eaten, letters half written, chores stopped in the middle of completion. An eerie silence hung over the area. No fresh tracks marked the ground. Just like the cabin.
    I went back to the castle and got Sebastian because, despite our personal differences, he was still my second-in-command, and right now, with everything going on, I couldn’t take the risk of bringing in anything new. He inspected the town the same way I had, but I hoped his military eye could catch something I’d missed. Any clue to what we were dealing with. He came back, calm but with a tick of worry in his eye.
    “It had to be magic,” he said.
    “But there