Page 80 of Revealing Fate

Kal shook his head, marbled dapples of light from the treetops landing on the planes of his face like angel kisses. “He didn’t have to.”

That’s right. Felíne wasn’t supposed to have known what she would face in that arena. Beaumont Stonehaugh hadn’t outright told her, but he’d killed the rat and given it to her to use as a distraction. The adversary wants blood, he had said. It won’t be picky about whose it gets.

“I thanked him,” Kal continued. A wrinkle furrowed his brow. “His distraction bought you time you might not have had otherwise.”

“I hope I have a chance to thank him myself,” she said.

“I imagine you will. But we need to fix a few things.”

A sneaking suspicion crept into her awareness. “Such as?”

“You have no fighting skills to speak of. If you’re ever attacked again, a dead rat won’t save you.”

He hadn’t said it with any malice, but Felíne bristled. “Sorry to disappoint, Battle Master,” she retorted. “Fighting for my life wasn’t part of the Prima’s royal education.”

Kal’s eyes went full black, his visage darkening dangerously. “It should have been.” Felíne startled at the sudden change in demeanor. “Especially considering what the Prima is meant to face.”

All the color drained from Felíne’s cheeks. The Primordial Male. That’s what Kal meant.

“Don’t worry,” he said, resolve bleeding through the choler. “I’m going to fix that.”

Kal’s fixing of whatever that was included dragging Felíne through a dense section of Stillwater Wood until her feet ached, and her breeches had been snagged in a dozen places by the grabbing underbrush.

“What is it that you’re fixing, again?”

“Your ineptitude with a weapon,” he replied. “Careful. That vine will leave you covered in welts the size of lemons.”

Felíne snatched her hand back from where she’d been about to rest it on the trunk of a vine-covered tree.

“How is that being accomplished, exactly?”

“Stop complaining,” he chided. “We’re nearly there.”

Felíne grumbled as she trudged after him. They pushed through another tangle of ferns that grew nearly to her chest. She stopped, stunned by the scene before her.

What must have recently been a dense, overgrown section of the forest was now a sight that sent chills feathering down her spine. Whole swaths of the wood had been cleared away. Not cleanly, as though by someone who’d prepped the land for building, but brutally, violently. The decapitated remains of once-proud trees tipped haggardly, their tops ripped off mid-trunk. The jagged stumps thrust awkwardly from the soil at odd angles. Unearthed roots lay tangled and exposed among the low-lying foliage. Monstrous gouges had been carved in the earth, scattering the corpses of small plants. Flowers lay wilted and dying. Savage claw marks scarred those trunks left standing.

Felíne stared. Whatever creature had hewn such a vicious path through the forest had done so in a bloodthirsty rage. What if it was still nearby?

“Kal…”

Kalevar continued past the ruined wood as though it didn’t exist. Felíne scurried to catch up with him.

“Kal?” She tugged on his elbow. “Kal!”

“What now?”

Oh, like he didn’t hear her? “What do you mean, what now? Am I hallucinating? You can’t tell me you don’t see this!”

He spared a glance toward the area she indicated with a frantic sweep of her hand. “It’s nothing,” he said.

She blanched. “Nothing? That is not nothing. Whatever did that is probably still out here!”

A muscle spasmed in the tight line of his jaw. “It is.”

Felíne held up a hand, drawing a breath of forced patience. “I’m sorry. You know what did this?”

He nodded curtly, dark eyes serious.