Page 50 of Feast

It only took one breath of the cold cavern air for Slaine to realize the problem.

Ika was gone.

Someone had stolen her in the night.

Slaine got to his feet, but his legs were unsteady beneath him. His brain felt thick, like his skull had been emptied out and filled with cold porridge.

“What the fuck?” Muk grunted. “Why do I feel like this?”

“Oneirix,” Gunnar answered. “Ika must have gathered some when I took her out to urinate. Once we fell asleep, she dosed us to keep us under while she made her escape.”

Escape?

Ika had escaped?

So she had not been kidnapped, but she had abandoned them of her own choice. This thought caused a sharp pang in Slaine’s chest. Sharper than the dagger from his dream.

Slaine looked to his leader. Thusar’s eyes were bloodshot and bruised-looking. He rubbed the sleep out of them and smirked.

“She is a resourceful little creature, whatever she is.”

“I just hope she’s resourceful enough to survive out there in the wild,” Gunnar retorted.

“Come on, you two,” Thusar snapped at Slaine and Muk. “Get your clothing on. We have to get out there and find her.”

Despite his onierix-induced dizziness, Slaine found his kilt and tunic and clothed himself. He fastened his stone dagger at his hip and took up a spear. Within the space of thirty heartbeats, he was out of the cave and ready to go.

“Easy,” Thusar called after him. “We need a plan.”

But Slaine could not be stopped. His brain was inflamed with the obsessive need to find Ika. To get her back. To ensure her safety.

She was his goddess.

Slaine rushed ahead through the snow, following the tracks made by Ika’s tiny feet. He did not have to follow them far. Those prints led up to the snow-covered bank of the river and abruptly stopped.

Slaine stopped with them. His muscles tensed with worry. He drank in the tree-scented wind, searching for any hint of his Ika’s aroma.

A moment later, and his pack brothers were there at his side.

“The tracks go right up to the river’s edge and then stop,” Gunnar growled.

Muk gasped.

“You don’t think she…”

Muk did not complete the sentence. It was too horrible to think about.

Silence gathered. The wind whispered through the trees, swirling snow-dust from the sagging dark branches.

“No,” Thusar said at last. “Look.”

He gestured at a massive slab of ice that was floating down the river, born on the lazy current like a frozen raft.

“You think she rode away on a block of ice?” Muk asked.

“Could be,” Gunnar said. “She’s only a little thing. A big enough block would hold her.”

“Resourceful,” Thusar growled admiringly.