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I frowned once I reached the glade, stopping to turn in a circle. She’d been here. Right. Here. With this break in the trees, I should’ve been able to see whichever direction she’d gone from here.
Closing my eyes, I focused, feeling for her. She was still close, to my…left. I turned that way, hurrying forward as a slight scraping sound filled my ears. But when I reached the shrubbery where the sound had originated… Nothing. She was gone. She’d been here. I swear, she—
Wait. I could feel her moving again, but now she was…
No, that wasn’t possible. It felt as if she were under the earth. I pursued the sensation, staring at the ground, until I reached the moat. Squinting at the water, I saw nothing in the liquid depths, but I felt her under there until…holy shit, her presence seemed to reach the castle and then was lost to me as she moved out of range.
“What the actual fuck,” I murmured in awe. There must be a secret passage into the Iron Castle from somewhere out here in the forest.
Incredible.
I turned around and stalked back to the city to meet up with my men again.
“You!” Soren charged as soon as he saw me approaching. “What the hell was that shoddy kind of fuckery? If he got away, it was all your fault for springing out like that, catching us all unaware without any notice. And he did, didn’t he? The dark magic bastard got away?”
“I don’t know,” I lied, wiping sweat off my face so I wouldn’t have to keep eye contact while I spoke. Then I turned to the others. “The trail I was following went cold. What about you men? Did you find him?”
When everyone else shook their heads miserably, I hissed out a curse to make it look as if I were pissed.
“Where’s the Lowden woman of magic?” I asked. “I want to question her myself.” And preferably alone. If she ratted Vienne out, I didn’t want anyone else to hear it.
“Gone,” Soren growled. “She wasn’t in the cottage when we stormed it.”
“Shit,” I said, when honestly I heaved out a sigh of relief.
Vienne was safe. And her identity would remain concealed. Thank God.
“This is all your fault,” Soren went on. “You shouldn’t have led this mission. You ruined everything. Now the bastard is onto us and aware how close we got to him. You lost us the only advantage we had.”
Ignoring him, I turned to the others. “Keep looking for clues. I’m going back to the castle to report to the king.”
“And I’m going with you to report to the fucking king.” Soren strode after me, dogging my heels. “I’m telling him exactly what happened and how this disaster was your fault. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you wanted the magic bastard to get away today because of how horribly you just handled everything.”
Growling, I spun to face him. “And why the hell would I do that? This entire fucking mission was my idea and plan in the first place.”
“Probably to throw us off track and distract us with this fiasco of a wild goose chase you just sent us on.”
“Okay,” I said, listening to him because his argument actually had some validity. If I were protecting the dark magic, this would be a good way to divert attention. “But to what extent?” I asked. “What the hell am I supposed to be distracting you from?”
Other than my one true love who’d snuck from the castle through a secret tunnel in a clever disguise to meet with a sketchy magical individual from fucking Lowden.
Dammit. What had she been thinking? What the hell had she been doing?
I adamantly refused to believe she had any dark magic in her, but…fuck. What if she did? Would I still protect her then?
A part of me screamed, yes. I’d follow her to hell and back. She was my one true love. She was Vienne. But…this…none of this boded well with me.
I needed answers.
When Soren scowled and mumbled, “I don’t know yet,” I snorted and spun away to continue my voyage back to the castle, ignoring his ranting while he blamed everything to ever go wrong in all the realms on me.
Chapter 34
Urban
Once we returned to the Throne Room to report the events of the morning, I didn’t have to say a word; Soren detailed it all to the king with emphasis on everything he was sure I’d fucked up.
“I don’t trust him,” he accused, pointing at me. “I’ve never trusted him. He needs to be punished for this.”
