Page 45

Forty-Five

Myron

We spend valuable minutes doing a thorough sweep of each corpse, careful to cover our hands in a piece of fabric cut from the lining of our cloaks as we collect vials from pockets and hidden compartments in their armor. When we’re done, we have gathered at least three vials from each dead soldier, bringing us to a total of over sixty vials.

“I have no idea how potent the serum is, but we should be careful not to break any of these and risk losing our powers all over again,” Kaira muses, collecting the final vial from the body farthest from the thicket we’d entered the clearing through.

“If this is even what we think it is. I don’t want to squash any hopes, but we might as well be wrong and this could be some sort of spirit human soldiers use to keep warm in this godforsaken weather.”

Kaira cuts me a glare. “You don’t actually think they’d place alcohol strategically along their fighting outfits.” I can sense the eye roll before it’s coming. “This is clearly a weapon.” She points at the vial before sliding it into the makeshift bag I made from another piece of my cloak. “If it’s not the magic-nullifying drug, it has to be something else of value, or they wouldn’t have hidden the extra vials along their bodies.”

I don’t disagree. Instead, I weigh the bag in my hand, eyeing the cluster of footprints leading in and out of the clearing in front of us.

“That’s where they came in.” I gesture at the broad streak of brown and crimson.

“And left,” Kaira amends.

Part of me wonders if her stomach is as tight as mine at the thought that the males we’re hunting down might have been taken prisoner.

“How many survived?” Kaira knows full well this is a question no one can truly answer before we find the survivors.

I wish the frost hadn’t covered all of the soil. This way it’s near impossible to tell how many people left the battlefield. “My guess is that the group was similarly large as the one ambushing us with Ephegos. Unless these poor bastards were part of the same group and merely didn’t survive the first battle. That, of course, would imply our friends either didn’t leave this field alive, or they were taken prisoner.” I try not to let the anger at either of those two options get a hold of me when I need my head to be clear to function for whatever atrocity fate is about to throw at us next.

“Let’s hope you’re wrong and there was a third option where they got away.” Her mental voice is shaking like she’s struggling with the same anger, but there is something more in her expression when I meet her gaze, and my heart splinters for her as I piece together what I’ve learned about her in the past months.

“You love him.” It’s not a question—and it explains why she is so anxious to find them. Find him is more accurate. “You’re fucking in love with him.”

I’ve never seen anyone turn that pink that fast. Kaira averts her face, gesturing at the bag in my hand instead of responding. “We should hide this somewhere. If we get into another battle, we don’t want sixty vials on us that can break if not stored properly.”

Deciding to let her change the topic, I turn around and aim for the edge of the clearing, assessing the nearest tree for holes in the trunk and am delighted to find an abandoned hollow that must have once provided a home for a squirrel or a bird family. Wordlessly, I stuff the bag into the opening, careful not to crack the fragile glass. Before I return to Kaira, I pull two vials from the bag and pocket them, then break a few brown twigs from the branches above me and cover the hole up. We’ll return later to get the rest. When I return to Kaira, I pull one of the vials from my pocket and hold it out for her.

“So we’re prepared in case we run into someone to test it on.” The grin I add should be comforting, but I can sense the feral edge to it. Her being in love with Herinor doesn’t change anything about our task at hand. Since the bloodied tracks in this area are the only ones leading out of the clearing, we need to assume Herinor and Silas went that direction. Unless they shifted and flew away.

Kaira takes the vial and shoves it into the breast pocket of her jacket. “Let’s hope we are wrong with all our assumptions and those two are hiding somewhere up in a tree, laughing at us as we try to find them.”

How I wish that were the case. There isn’t much I can tell Kaira that wouldn’t raise false hopes, but I can give her this: “If Herinor is up somewhere in a tree, he won’t waste a heartbeat reuniting with you, Kaira. He might be a fool, but he’s not a fool when it comes to you.”

The way she glances sideways at me makes me wish I could tell her everything is going to be fine—at least for her and Herinor if Ayna and I can’t have a happy ending. The echo of pain claws at the lump beating deadly in my chest, and I shove it back down. If I allow even a hint of it to flare, I’ll become useless to the female Ayna left in my care. And I won’t disappoint my mate.

“Let’s go find them,” I say instead. “Maybe we’re lucky and find the other rebels, too.”

A slow nod from Kaira and we’re on our way, sneaking along the edges of the tracks as we both try not to spiral into our darkest places.

The sun is a shrouded, silver disk up in the sky as we decide to take a break an hour after we’ve left the clearing. While both our attentions remain on the forest around us, on every flap of wings and song of a winter bird, we have been discussing the reasons the soldiers we found frozen over are human.

We’ve come as far as wondering if those weren’t even there on Ephegos’s order but a group of Tavrasian scouts who coincidentally roamed the same part of the borderlands at the same time. Ephegos has preferred to work with Flames so far, to use the magical advantage of the fire-spitting creatures who Kaira once called her family.

“Or they could be a special unit trained by the traitor Crow,” Kaira suggests. “I wouldn’t put it past Ephegos to test all types of troops against fairies and Crows.”

She’s not wrong. Insane as Ephegos might be, he’s still an excellent strategist, and testing the limitations of his soldiers on a small scale will buy him an advantage in the long run. “We’ll ask Herinor when we find him.” I refuse to say ‘if’, because that would break Kaira’s heart, and Kaira is the closest connection to Ayna I still have—except for the bond lying dormant beneath the effects of the drug still leaving my system.

The tracks at our feet are no longer accompanied by drops of blood, but it’s clear more than two people walked away from that clearing. If only I could determine from the scent if one of them was Herinor or Silas the way I can with Ayna, but to be able to isolate a scent out of a cluster of others even hours after they’ve actually touched a place seems to be something specific to mates.

That gives me an idea?—

“Can you smell Herinor?” Not that I believe any of this could work if Herinor and Kaira haven’t accepted and solidified a mating bond, but if there’s a chance they could be mates, perhaps she’s more sensitive to his perfume than I would be.

The horrified expression she gives me almost makes me laugh.

“I have no idea what he smells like.”

Trying not to notice the defensive tone, I shake my head. “I’m almost certain he would answer that question differently.”

The sound of Kaira’s teeth grinding together almost makes me cringe, that’s how loud it is in comparison to the silence of the forest.

A silence that nearly fools me.

But when I turn back toward our path, I spot movement ahead where the trees part, letting more light pour into the seam of the forest.

“Let’s hope those aren’t all enemies,” I think at her, drawing my sword as I duck deeper into the shadows.

Kaira follows suit, unsheathing both her daggers as we sneak toward the cluster of people perhaps two hundred feet ahead.

My pulse accelerates as what’s awakened of my magic strains against the remains of the drug, but it isn’t enough to draw up more than a thin shield big enough to enclose the two of us.

“We stay hidden and try to figure out what we’re dealing with,” I order, the tone of the king slipping into my voice, even if it’s just through the mind link, but Kaira is smart enough not to call me out for it.

“If they have Herinor and Silas, I swear I’ll rip their throats out.” The level of violence in Kaira’s voice is new to me, but I’m familiar with the rage burning in every last word. It’s the same rage that I keep locked up so tightly as I try to avoid thinking about Ayna to be able to focus on the matters at hand.

“I’ll be right there with you.” Because, no matter how well I can suppress that rage about Ayna’s fate, I’m still the King of Crows, and my fury blazes at the thought that someone might have hurt two of the last Crows left in my court.

The trees become a blur as we hurry closer to what seems to be a camp at the edge of the forest. I spy sepia and gold on the banners floating on the wind—a wind that I can’t feel here between the trees.

“There are too many,” Kaira narrates as we crouch behind a row of young evergreens, the movements of the camp almost tangible.

“To barge in and kill, there are too many, yes. Especially with our weakened powers.” Touching the almost-healed wound on my cheek, I count the soldiers in the camp. “Twenty that I can see. No idea how many are in the tents.”

Kaira follows my gaze along the small grey tents indicating the soldiers have been staying in this place for a while.

“Are they human?” I almost jump as she prompts me through the mind link after what feels like half an eternity of silence.

A slow, steadying breath filling my lungs, I assess what I can make out from a distance, frowning at the absence of the smell of the army. “They must have at least some creatures with powers in that camp, or they wouldn’t be able to shield it that well. But from what I can tell, most of the soldiers out and about are human, but you already know that.”

Kaira has spent enough time between both species to tell the difference at a quick glance. It’s more like she’s hoping for me to invent a more bearable truth. I’m the last person to be able to deliver, though, with my inability to lie.

“And Herinor and Silas? Where could they be?”

Both our eyes sweep the camp for possible locations to hold prisoners. Between the larger tents, soldiers are bustling about, a group clustering around an open fire where a man stirs the contents of a cauldron with a long wooden spoon. Plates and loaves of bread sit on a split log serving as a makeshift bench. The tents bordering the cooking area seem to be the residential area. What I’m looking for is a place swarming with guards who aren’t there for the food, but find nothing standing out.

Just as I want to tell Kaira I have no idea, movement catches my attention by the side of the camp where the last row of tents stands a few feet from the thicket. I can’t see all the way to the gap with the trees blocking out my vision, but I see enough to understand prisoners aren’t being put into tents. They are chained up at the foot of a tree, shoulders slumping over the knees and heads bowed as they sit on the frozen ground.

“Over there.” In my mind, I’m already calculating the options of freeing them, factoring in Kaira’s emotional stakes in Herinor’s rescue—not that I don’t have emotional stakes. I merely learned to detach myself from them. Catching her arm in a cautioning grasp, I gesture at the group of figures in the shade of the trees, making sure she doesn’t leap and run for them without making a plan first.

A whimper escapes her throat as she freezes in place, eyes scanning the half-light behind the tents for faces I’m still looking for.

“Are you sure they’re there? I only see … people. I can’t tell if any of them are Crows.” The hope in her mental tone nearly breaks my heart.

Because if Herinor and Silas aren’t there, chances are they got away.

Or that they’re dead.

I turn back toward the camp where activity seems to be buzzing in the western area, farther away from the forest, people lining up to grab food, before unfolding from my crouch, pulling Kaira along. “Only one way to find out.”