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Right now, he looked like that faith had been shaken. Hard.
Thus, I merely gave a measured nod and said, “Indeed. I meant no offense, and I doubt your scholar did either. But several aspects of Roan’s form match those I’ve seen in books I studied over the years, and the possessive behaviors he exhibited in his… altered state would also tend toward that explanation.”
To say nothing of the wounds on my chest.
Gods, if that demon hurt the princess…
Rage snarled through my veins again, demanding I take off after her right now, never mind that I could not do so. No, that creature had trapped me quite well, constraining me to a form that couldn’t pursue him easily. And it would be no simple matter to correct that. Demonic wounds were problematic at best. Healing them would be complicated and take time.
Would he tear into her too if she tried to escape him? Would he trap her with him, as unable to shift or fly as I currently was, and thus leave her entirely at his mercy?
A shudder rolled through me as old memories ghosted through my mind. They were my constant companions, these horrific nightmares that waited to assault me at any moment even when I was awake. And I would never forget them, not if I lived to be a thousand. The cries and screams of the final days of my kingdom echoed forever in my ears. The sight of ordinary people turned into vampires was burned indelibly behind my eyes. How there’d been nothing of their former selves in their eyes. How they’d torn into their loved ones with no care for who their victims had once been to them. Friends. Family. Children. None of it mattered. They fed on them all and laughed with glee as the innocents died.
Nothing of Roan had been in those demonic eyes.
“Roan is Erenlian,” Lars said, drawing my attention back to the present moment. “He was raised Erenlian, and he lost his family in the war. He told us that.”
Gods, I longed for the days when I might have believed such a thing could matter to a monster.
I did not rebuke him, though. I could not afford to alienate these men, not when I would likely need their help to save Gwyneira. Instead, I only made a level sound of acknowledgement. “Perhaps he is only half.”
By the wall of flame, Ozias looked back at me, his eyes sharp in his soot-smeared face. I could not read the way he studied me, but it piqued my curiosity even as it deepened my suspicion.
Now why would that statement have prompted him to turn when nothing else had?
“We’ll ask Roan when we find him.” With his sword in hand, Dex started toward the gap between houses that led to the street. “When we find them both. Lars?” He jerked his chin at the fire between the houses ahead and then stalked forward when his friend used magic to quell the blaze.
I followed immediately. I appreciated many things about that man, and his focus was definitely one of them—especially seeing as, right now, it was mine too.
My gaze tracked across the sky. I could see no sign of that monster, but it was no matter. We would find the princess. We would stop Roan from hurting her, no matter what he truly was. And if for any reason we were too late, if he’d already harmed her in any way…
Even demons could die.
24
DEX
The heat of the fires parched my skin, the smoke burned my lungs, and everywhere I turned, the destruction looked like what I saw in the war.
Except this time monsters were responsible, and my treluria had just been taken by one of them.
The one I’d called friend.
I reached the street, and my innate sense of direction sent me to the right immediately. The gate lay this way, and beyond it, the open terrain where maybe we’d get a better idea of which way Roan had gone.
I didn’t want to think of what I’d do if we lost him—and her—entirely.
Exhaling sharply, I kept moving. Debris crunched under my feet and the lingering smoke seared my lungs, bringing back too many memories of other cities, other days when I’d marched through the aftermath of destruction with other men who would eventually betray me.
My hand tightened on the hilt of my sword. I couldn’t have loosened my grip on it if I tried.
I rounded a corner, and the gate came into sight ahead. It was only partially standing, one side of the massive barricade charred and smoldering. Burned grassland lay beyond the opening, but like the rest of the city, the harpies were long gone.
They’d taken off the moment that demon appeared, and given what Roan did to the dragon, I didn’t want to consider what that meant he was capable of.
What those monsters somehow knew, even if we didn’t.
Striding faster down the street toward the gate, I ground my teeth in rage. Years of living around someone. Years. And they turned out to be a gods-damned monster, and I never had a clue.
