Page 52

Into Tyndra

If I thought trekking across Little Tyndra from the Shadowood to the temple tower that houses the portal had once been a miserable journey by foot, flying six of us on Bene’s massive back through a blizzard even Vos grumbles about made that previous trip look like a jaunt through a spring garden.

Bene, even in his massive, full Devourer form, has had to battle to move through the air with every flap of his sandy wings. He couldn’t go above the storms. If he flies too high, he disintegrates into sand, and that would be bad for all of us. More than once he was buffeted hard enough that we were lucky none of us got pitched off his back. It’s almost as though the dominion itself is trying to stop us, throwing everything it has at us.

Like Eidolon knows we’re here.

Maybe he does. I’m here, after all, although I think I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping my heart as cold as the icy dominion.

“We’re here,” Vos yells over his shoulder at me. Riding up front, he’s been blocking some of the weather with an ice shield this entire way.

“How the hells do you know?” I yell back.

Without the amulet around my neck, I can’t hear Bene’s voice in my head, but Vos never could so…

“What?” he asks.

I shake my head.

Sure enough, a second later, Bene leans to the left, flying in tight spirals down to the ground. Landing is even worse. The strength of the winds tosses Bene as he tries, and it takes several violent flaps of his wings before he can touch down. I’m not the only one who lets out a not-so-silent groan of relief that we made it this far.

As my feet hit the ground after following Vos off, the winds pause just long enough for me to catch the hint of a mountain directly in front of us. I tip my head, trying to see the top, but thick clouds and snow obscure my view. What I can see, though, is ice-covered rock that appears to sheer straight up.

If I weren’t forcing myself to feel nothing, I’d probably wobble at that sight.

Tziah slips her hand into mine, our gloves so thick I can barely curl my fingers around hers. With our fur-lined hoods drawn up and faces covered against the blistering cold, I don’t bother to try to look at her face. Coming back here can’t be easy for her. We all know that.

“This way!” Vos yells over the howling storm.

Bene nudges me from behind, and I stumble forward, taking Tziah with me. She’s the only reason I don’t fall over. Holding tight, she takes the lead, tugging me along behind her. Keeping my gaze glued to the icy ground as I try my hardest not to slip and fall, I don’t realize we’re anywhere close to shelter until we step into darkness and Tziah finally lets go. Reven’s hand leaves the small of my back and I blink at him. I hadn’t even realized he had a grip on me in the first place. He tips his chin at Vos and Tziah’s departing figures, and we both keep going with Hakan, Pella, and Bene behind us, as Vos lights the way with the glow of his hand.

Farther inside the space that Bene can still squeeze through full-sized, the winds stop entirely, and we step around a bend into a cavern that opens up even higher overhead. A place that has clearly seen humans before. Immediately, Vos is pulling already cut pieces of wood from a pile by the entrance to build a fire.

I’m too busy gaping at the size—the room is big enough for Bene to fly in here—and how the rock in here is red. A deep red that glistens with traces of other kinds of rock.

“Anyone else feel like the mountain looks like it’s bleeding?” I ask.

Pella huffs a laugh. “Like a gutted goat.”

Tziah signs something to Vos, but he doesn’t laugh. He sighs, very unVos-like, then ruffles her hair.

“What?” I ask.

“She said that when her family was killed, she couldn’t tell if the red on the ground was their blood or the mountain.”

Goddess, that had to be terrible. These days I know something about losing family violently. Omma. Vida. Even Tabra, though I got her back. Reven…

The nymph.

I close my eyes and feed even that small moment of feeling into the numb box.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I say, because it’s true, even if I can’t let myself feel it at the moment.

After a second, as if she knows what’s going on inside me, Tziah wraps both arms around me.

“You never hug me like that,” Pella says.

Tziah and I both lift our heads. “I thought you’d cut an arm off if we tried anything like that,” I say.

She purses her lips together. “Sounds like me,” she muses. “But a true friend would risk a limb.”

I snort a laugh, but Tziah holds out a beckoning hand. After her eyebrows shoot up, Pella pastes a put-upon expression on her face and steps into a circle of hugging with us. “I’m only doing this because Tziah asked,” she grumbles.

“Don’t worry,” I say in a teasing voice they’d all expect. It’s amazing how easy it’s been to slip back into not feeling anything. “I know you secretly think of me as your very bestest friend in all of Nova.”

She twitches. “You wish.”

“Cover your ears,” Hakan warns us.

We all let go to follow that instruction, already knowing what’s coming. An odd, sizzling sensation fills the air a heartbeat before light flashes, the boom of Hakan’s lightning cracking off the rock walls as he lights the fire.

“Who left the wood here?” Pella asks, lowering her hands. “Do we need to be checking the caves for other occupants?”

Vos uses a long, skinny stick to poke at the flames, stirring them higher, red glowing embers floating up to disappear in the darkness. I turn my face into the flare of warmth, holding out my hands.

“The people who left it used to work the mines within the mountain,” Vos says. “One of the jobs was to procure wood and oil for their fires, including being sure all the Svetlyska entrances were stocked like this.”

Pella nods. “I assume it’s been abandoned since…”

Vos’s lips flatten. “Since the last time Tziah and I were here? As far as I know, yes. I buried the heart before I ran so they couldn’t use it anymore.”

Vos pushes the hood of his jacket back, loosening his scarves as he looks around. After a shake of his head that is probably him talking to himself, he looks directly at Reven. “This is where you found us.”

Reven gives a frowning glance around. “What?”

“I got me and Tziah away from the monsters and the soldiers, but I was injured.” He lifts a cocky eyebrow. “I’d show you where, but I’d have to drop my pants to do it.”

I try to picture what was injured and he nudges me with his elbow. “Don’t worry. Nothing got near my perfect ass. But one of those monsters damn near took my leg off. When General Quentin realized I was getting Tziah out of here without killing her, he put two arrows in my back before I could freeze that bastard solid. I say that I saved Tziah, but she’s the one who dragged me out of the pit of caves and mining shafts. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but that tiny body was given superhuman strength and agility.”

I’ve seen it in action in Tropikis when she dove into a crowd of mindless rabid people to save Cain and when she tackled a soldier in that fight. In several other fights since, actually. But not quite to that extent. I know for sure I wouldn’t be able to drag Vos’s lean but solid bulk anywhere, let alone fast enough to escape.

“We managed to get here, but by then it was night. No one travels this part of Tyndra at night.” Vos looks toward the path leading outside. “No one who wants to live, at least.”

Something we’ve all learned well just getting here. I can’t help but glance in the direction he’s staring, but Bene has lain down in front of the exit, wings folded back, like he’s blocking out any possible cold that could seep inside.

He looks like he wants to say something. I wish I knew what.

Vos shrugs. “Even in the dark, we could tell I was bleeding too heavily to move more by then anyway. Dying for sure. And I think I said something like ‘help us’ or ‘save us.’ In my delirium, I didn’t believe the man who suddenly appeared in the cavern with us, lighting the space up with the glow of his hands, was real.” He laughs. “Tziah by then had figured out that opening her mouth incapacitated people, so she did.”

He looks at Reven. “You clapped your hands over your ears and shouted something like, ‘I’m here to help you, damn it.’”

Reven is holding himself so still, I think even a flicker of flame coming too close could knock him over. I’m guessing he is searching and clawing through the holes of his mind to try to remember this. Any of this.

Vos’s gaze dulls with understanding and he claps a hand on Reven’s shoulder. “We were the first two people you brought to the Shadowood, brother. The first of the voices you can hear that you saved.”

Reven hesitates only a second before he also claps a hand on Vos’s opposite shoulder. “I wish I could remember.”

Vos nods slowly, then wags his eyebrows. “But you’re happy you did it anyway, aren’t you?”

And Reven…laughs.

Low, and almost reluctant, but the deep rumble is sincere. His eyes widen like he’s surprised that sound came from him. “I guess I am,” he says. And squeezes Vos’s shoulder.

And for the first time since I pulled him out of Eidolon, there is no edge of hesitation in his gaze as he looks at his old friend. He’s not ready to call Vos brother, yet. But I’d rather face whatever happens next with them on the same team, so thank the goddesses for that.

Or maybe I should start saying “Thank Allusian.”

“How do we get to the heart if you buried it?” I ask Vos and Tziah.

But he clamps his lips shut.

Right. No telling the possible Eidolon spy. “I guess I’ll find out when we get there.”