We took flight and left the battlefield behind. I was not sure where we were going as we flew into the city and landed on a deserted street. There was very little damage in this part of Erétria, so I imagined the people had gone to other parts of the city to help their neighbours.
I wanted to ask Riordan what we were doing exactly once he and Orion shifted back. But there was an aura of tension about my mate that made me hold my tongue.
We entered what seemed to be a residential building with several flights of stairs. My armour seemed suddenly even heavier, and I began to fall behind the two men who tackled the stairs without any issue. I was about to yell at them to slow down, but then Riordan stopped in front of one of the apartment doors.
I heard him curse and quickened my pace in spite of myprotesting lungs and muscles to catch up as he pushed the door open. As I reached the landing, I saw the frame had been splintered from someone breaking the door open with a powerful kick.
“Ilias!” shouted Orion once the two men had burst into the apartment. “Markos!” he added.
The unit was ransacked. Two couches had both been flipped and the stuffing in the cushions had been pulled out and strewn all over the floor. Every drawer had been pulled right out of the cabinets and contents were dumped all over the ground. Loose tiles, floor boards, and wall panelling had all been torn up, pictures all ripped from the walls and the canvases shredded to expose the frames.
Someone had been looking for something, and it did not seem as if they had left a single inch of the apartment unexplored in their search for it.
“Fuck!” hissed Orion, but Riordan stood in the middle of the room looking lost and unsteady. The look of numb devastation on his face gave away all I needed to know.
“Your father?” I guessed and reached tentatively for his arm while Orion began searching the house.
“He… was supposed to write three days ago but with everything going on… I lost track,” Riordan whispered.
“This was not your fault! And you don’t know that he was even taken. Maybe he was not here when they came and now he is hiding somewhere else,” I pointed out.
“Well, well, look who we have here!” Orion shouted from the bedroom with a tone of loathing I had not heard in his voice for some time.
Riordan and I rushed for the bedroom just in time to see Orion had grabbed someone under the bed by their ankles and was now dragging a protesting man out.
“Nikos?” I blurted at the sight of Riordan’s arrogant cousin who fled Kórinthos after Riordan had threatened punitive measures for endangering the Vale. Ares’s sister, Althaea, hadbeen keeping a close eye on him whilst he was in Árgos, but he hadn’t done anything to warrant any further concern.
“What areyoudoing here?” Riordan demanded as he advanced aggressively on his cousin. I genuinely worried he might unleash the violence brimming under his skin on the other man. “Was thisyouall long?”
Nikos held up his hands and shook his head frantically. There was no sign of the conceited aristocrat I had met in the Mountain City as he inched back from his infuriated cousin. His dark eyeliner was smudged, his hair unkempt, and his clothing was wrinkled.
“I received a message from your father! He wanted to meet me here, so I came!” Nikos tried to defend himself. “The apartment was already destroyed without a sign of Ilias or hisskiáanywhere. I had nowhere to go, and then the city was attacked, so I had to hide here!”
“You never respected my father. Why would you come here to meet with him?” Riordan demanded.
“Because… Because I think someone might be trying to kill me!” Nikos admitted. His voice was shrill enough that I believed that he at least believed that.
“Is that so?” Orion smirked, sharing an amused glance with Riordan who seemed equally skeptical.
“Yes! Here,” said Nikos as he reached for his robes.
Orion unsheathed his sword and had the tip at the other man’s throat in the blink of an eye. Nikos made a squeak as he gasped and held both hands up again, but Riordan gestured for Nikos to produce his proof.
We all watched closely as he retrieved a missive from his cloak pocket and held it up for Riordan with trembling hands. My mate snatched it, which made Nikos flinch and then try to slide away from us across the floor. But Orion tsked and stepped up behind him to block his escape.
We all waited in silence for my mate to read the letter, his golden eyes flitting over the message at least twice.
“It says to burn it after reading,” he observed finally, and Nikos rolled his eyes with the attitude I remembered of him from our brief meeting.
“Yes, well, it had the address on it.”
Riordan stared down at the missive a moment longer before he lowered his eyes to Nikos and narrowed them.
“This is not my father’s writing.”
“What?” Nikos gaped, his face paling.
Orion took the letter from Riordan to examine it for himself and nodded after a moment.
