I snorted.
If she didn’t eviscerate him for his audacity, first.
Blood dripped down the blade of Nerissa’s sword as she held it loosely in her hand, staring out at the sea.
“I suppose it would make sense. If this … Veskor knew where our island was but couldn’t find it due to the wards, so it would be logical to try to draw someone out. And unlikeothers,” she shot us a look, “our wards are strong.”
Benedict bristled.
“But why?” Wren asked, clutching her stomach and wincing. “Why draw out one male draken? Why not one of your daughters?”
Nerissa went silent.
Benedict turned to me. “Ronan, please escort Wren home. That has been enough for today. We will follow, we need to speak to the Elders about our next course of action.”
Wren winced again and didn’t protest Benedict’s decision. That’s how I knew she was exhausted.
“She can rest here in my cabin, if she wishes,” Nerissa offered, eyeing Wren’s stomach.
“No, I want her behind the wards,” Benedict ordered, wings flaring. “Failing or not.”
Nerissa raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.
I held my hands out and gathered Wren into me, her arms going around my neck. She yawned into my chest. I made a mental note to feed her blood when we got back to the treehouse.
“Come on, sleepy.”
Kieran helped me step onto the rail and I jumped off the ship, pumping my wings hard to take flight back to the island. Wren was heavier with the child in her belly, but still it was not hard for me to carry and fly. I wanted badly to stay and discuss the latest revelations and help the others form a plan, but Wren was tired. My responsibilities were clear.
The island came under us quickly, the western beach calm this high up.
I should’ve catalogued the wards’ pulse signatures from earlier, or sketched Anar’s sigil while it was fresh in my memory. That might help us. If Nerissa said the wards were failing, they had to be cause for concern. We would figure it out and?—
My eyes caught on something small down on the beach: a splash of bright color amongst the sand where none should be.
I tilted my wings and steered down toward it.
“Wren, look!” I pointed to it.
She leaned over my arms, looking. “A flower?”
Not just any flower—a strange flower.
It shouldn’t have survived the salt spray. Its petals were thin as parchment, pale blue streaked with silver veins that shimmered faintly when I leaned closer. Not native to Lyoness, and not anything I’d seen in a thousand years of botanical study. It carried the faint hum of bloodmagick, a rhythm closer to heartbeat than bloom.
Nerissa’s island, then? A clue from the vampyres?
“What is it?” Wren asked as I gently put her down onto the sand.
“Curious little thing,” I murmured, crouching to brush my fingertips over it. The air tingled like it was reactive, alive. When I lifted my hand away, faint runes glowed on my skin before fading again.
Definitely magickal.
“It’s beautiful!” Wren exclaimed, bending as low as she could to see it before the child in her belly stopped her.
I grinned at her, then frowned.
I needed my notes to record it before it faded, and it would likely die if I tried to bring it to the treehouse. My notebook with all of my sketches and my pens were back on my desk in the treehouse. It would take five minutes, ten at most, to fly there and back.
