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No one would have dared attack her with her chalyx in the room. I take in Khijhana’s furious stance, and I wonder distantly which of us will kill Dvain first.
“The kitchens were busy today, My King, lords and ladies stocking up for their journeys home. I left it steeping longer than usual while I gathered the things for her breakfast.” Guilt racks his features. He was the first person in this castle to defend Zaina, to respect her.
There is plenty of guilt to go around, though.Why didn’t I warn her that the alchemist had returned?
“The nobles were in the kitchen?”
“The ones who were leaving today,” he confirms.
Red flashes through my eyes, and my voice is coated with rage when I manage to speak. “Odger?”
Fury flashes in Leif’s eyes, reminding me that every single one of my people is trained first and foremost as a warrior. “Yes.”
I had been wondering how she was smuggled out.
I storm into the stables. “When did Odger’s carriage leave?”
It’s Sarah Agnes who answers. “Just half an hour ago, Your Majesty.” The intuitive girl eyes me cautiously. “Shall I saddle Zola for you?”
I look at my familiar, trusty hestrinn, then Zaina’s wild one. Even now, his eyes are rolling around in his head...but he looks restless, brimming with energy.
“No,” I tell her. “I’ll take Gideon.”
I made the right choice.
Snow-capped mountains and trees are little more than a blur with the pace Gideon sets. Zola is fast, but this hestrinn is something else entirely.
Khijhana keeps pace beside us, though Gunnar, Helga, and Leif are a few miles back. I don’t even attempt to slow Gideon, however. There isn’t a single part of me willing to reach my destination more slowly.
A black carriage looms in front of us. I shout out an order for it to stop, and the driver obeys. It’s less than a minute before we catch up to it.
I sail off Gideon’s back before he comes to a stop, already hurtling toward the door of the carriage.
“Your Majesty!” The driver is somewhere between shocked and dismayed, but I don’t have time to respond to him right now. I wrench the carriage door open only to find...trunks. Not a single person, let alone Odger.
This carriage matches the description Sarah Agnes gave, but...
“Where is Odger?” I demand, finally turning to look at the driver, who is now pale and trembling. Khijhana growls at my side, and I wonder which of us terrifies the man more.
“He -- he paid me to take the coach to his estates, My King. Said he only needed to ride as far as the gates.”
Anxiety churns my stomach. She isn’t here.
“Was anyone with him?” I can’t very well ask about Zaina specifically when she’s supposed to be dead.
“N-no, Majesty. He was alone.”
“Was he carrying anything?”
“Just his trunk, My King. Massive thing, it was. I offered to take it, but he said he needed it, where he was going.”
Rage like I’ve never known throbs through my temples, obscuring my vision with a blood-colored curtain.He put her in a trunk.
I will dismember him for this. Slowly and without mercy.
“Go on to his estate and speak of this to no one, by order of your king.”
The man looks relieved I haven’t taken my significant rage out on him instead. I mount Gideon, returning to the others.
