Pacing back and forth in the foyer, Grey anxiously waited for news regarding Reyna.
The nearby servants moved nervously around him, unable to meet his eyes or make a single sound in fear of provoking their master.
What was taking them so long?
A task that should have taken at most one hour had stretched on for several hours.
They should have found her by now.
Slamming his fist against the wall, he demanded, “Why are there still no signs of her?” “Calm down, Grey.
You’re getting too worked up over nothing,” a familiar woman said as she stepped into the room.
All the servants bowed towards her as he greeted her, “Mother.” “Call back everyone,” she ordered with a wave of her hand.
“Mother,” he snapped as the servants glanced between the two of us, uncertain whom to follow.
“Grey,” she said as her head snapped towards him.
Even though he was the current head of the family, he couldn’t defy his mother and bowed his head to her.
She slowly walked towards him with an impassive expression.
“We have been patient in allowing you to act like this ever since you took that slip of a girl as your wife.
However, you now have a new wife and heir to care for.
You can’t be wasting resources like this,” she said.
“Reyna is still part of the family,” Grey said, watching his mother walk past him to look out the window.
Taking his place beside her and following her gaze, he saw that everyone her had sent out was already returning.
As his eyes frantically scanned the figures, he couldn’t find Reyna among them.
“It appears that she doesn’t think the same,” his mother said as she turned away from the window.
The muscles in his jaw twitched as he stormed out of the room.
His mother followed closely behind, as did the other servants.
Slamming the front doors open, he glared as his people acknowledged his presence.
“Where is she?” he roared.
The effect was immediate.
Everyone immediately bowed their heads, not daring to look him in the face.
“Apologies.
We couldn’t retrieve her,” one of the men said.
Storming up to the one who had said that, Grey grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up into the air.
“Explain.” He gasped and clawed at Grey’s hand before another man said, “She’s gone.
She threw herself over a cliff.” Grey’s heart stopped.
Dropping the man he had been holding up, he ignored how he coughed and sucked in deep breaths and focused his attention on the speaker.
“What?” he asked in a deadly whisper.
The man avoided Grey’s gaze and looked to his companions for help, but they remained silent, leaving him to fend for himself.
In just a few strides, Grey towered over the man who trembled underneath Grey’s intense stare.
He said in a deathly calm voice, “Repeat that again.” The words spilled out of the man’s mouth.
“We were able to corner her and were going to bring her back, but she suddenly jumped off the cliff.
There’s no way she could have survived.” “Show me where!” he barked.
“Grey, be reasonable.
If they said she threw herself off the cliff, then she’s dead.
There’s no point looking for her,” his mother said as she stood by him.
Meeting her eyes, he said, “They didn’t bring a body.
That must mean she’s out there.” “What would you have done if they did bring the body back?
Were you planning on giving her a proper burial?
She’s no longer your wife, nor does she belong to the family anymore,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“She isn’t dead,” he emphasized.
The two stared at each other, not saying a word.
The servants nervously glanced between them, waiting to see who would break the standoff first.
Grey broke first, turning his back on her to look at his men, and ordered, “Take me to the last place you saw her.” They looked to his mother, and he clenched his fists.
She looked at him with a blank expression, though her dark brown eyes glimmered with amusement.
He had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from saying anything.
However, before his mother could say anything, someone called out, “Grey.” It was Dolores.
Where had she been all this time?
She should have surely known about her missing sister, so why hadn’t she come running sooner?
“Where are you going?
Didn’t you patrol earlier today?” Dolores asked, her purple gumdrop eyes scanning the group.
“Your sister is missing,” he calmly stated, though he felt his blood boil at how unaffected she was by his words.
“It’ll be fine.
I’m sure she’ll be back in no time.
She just needs time to adjust,” she said as she blinked innocently at him.
With a scowl, he pulled away and said, “Your sister was reported to have fallen off a cliff.” For a brief moment, he thought he saw glee flash in her eyes.
It had been so sudden and quick that he thought he might have imagined it, but considering her behavior thus far, he was beginning to have doubts about her.
“That’s horrible,” she said as she covered her mouth with a hand.
“Stay here.
I need to investigate where she was last seen,” he said, turning his back on her.
“Wait.
You can’t go.
Surely the others can handle it,” she said, throwing herself at him.
“She’s right.
You should be staying with her and taking care of your wife and heir instead of looking for someone who’s likely to be dead,” his mother said as she stepped forward.
He stared at them for a few moments before he used his magic to launch himself into the air.
None of them expected this and scrambled away from the earth hand he had created to throw him.
Everyone shouted after him as he soared above them towards the forest, his curly brown hair whipping in the wind.
If they weren’t going to tell him where she was, he’d go look for her himself.
Their description of where they last saw her helped immensely, narrowing down how much territory he had to search.
Soon he found the cliff they had spoken of and peered over the edge down at the Brashambe River.
He didn’t know how long he stared at the running water before sounds of people approaching reached his ears.
The leader of the group cautiously stepped towards him, saying, “Master, your mother is quite furious.
You must return immediately.” Even though Grey wanted to refuse and chase after Reyna, he knew he couldn’t.
He couldn’t abandon the family or his heir just like that.
He had responsibilities that he couldn’t ignore no matter how much he wanted to.
Staring into the river, he vowed that as soon as he could, he would hunt Reyna down and bring her back home, even if it meant chasing her across the world.