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Vayne scowled. "You're going to leave the rest of them?" He jerked his head towards the carriages and the remaining sisters.
"We're outnumbered," I pointed out. "We'll go after that one. We might not need more than her."
Without waiting to see if they followed my orders, I turned and stepped back into the trees.
"Be on alert for pursuit," I said to Tavian. "If you see anyone who isn't a former maiden, kill them."
"Anyone who isn't us too," Vayne said with a grunt.
Tavian flashed a grin at him as though he really needed the clarification.
I left them to glare at each other and opened my senses to the scent of honeysuckle. It was up ahead, moving rapidly through the trees, accompanied by the scent of leather and wet human. Conflicting odours at best.
A shout behind us was cut short. I didn't need to look back to know Tavian dealt with them. He was odd at best, but he followed the orders he liked, and he liked this one. Killing. Especially Fae from a rival court. It was what made him such a good Master of Assassins. And an assassin himself, when the mood took him.
"They have to be close," Vayne said. "The stink of human is strong. The woman too."
For some inexplicable reason, I was glad he added that. She wasn't just a human. She might be the key we needed…
I forced the thought away. Right now, my focus had to be on finding her and getting her away from here before Dalyth found her. The sense of her was strong. Dalyth would want her, beyond all doubt. She'd want all of them.
Too fucking bad, she wasn't getting this one. Not until I knew.
I slowed and gestured for Vayne and Tavian to do the same. I searched with eyes and ears. They were near. Very near. The canopy here was so thick the sun wouldn't have penetrated if it was shining. In the rain, it was all shadows and gloom. The downpour washed away scents soon after they were captured by the air. The heavier the rain, the harder it was to pin them down.
There.
Movement at the base of a large fern. A plant that couldn't, shouldn't grow here. The rain and the heat was encouraging things to appear in the wrong places. The groundcover should be thin, the trees bare of leaves. The air should be dry. If things were normal, we would have found them in moments.
Nothing was normal. It hadn't been for a long, long time.
"I know you're there." I forced myself to sound bored. I was anything but. If we didn't get out of here soon, Dalyth would find us. She wouldn't hesitate to kill any of us. Wouldn't care who I was.
I wasn't surprised to see it was the priest who rose, half his body obscured by the fern. He held out a sword like he knew how to use it. He was a head, perhaps a head and a half shorter than me. His reach was less than mine. If we fought with swords, he'd be lucky to last a minute or two. And I had a bow.
"What do you want?" Neither his hands nor his voice trembled.
I gave him credit for facing us down. Three Fae men, considerably bigger and better trained than him.
"Can I kill him, Ryze?" Tavian asked eagerly.
"Not yet, Tave," I said over my shoulder. To the priest I said, "What's your name?"
He hesitated. "If I tell you my name, you might use it against me."
Vayne snorted derisively. "Are they still spreading that shit about us?"
"So it would seem," I said. "We're not going to use anything against you. We want to know how to address you. I'm Ryze. This is Vayne and Tavian. We call him Tave."
"Zared," the priest said eventually, reluctantly. He glanced down.
If I hadn't already guessed the maiden was there, the glance gave her away.
When Zared looked back up, he realised his mistake. His face paled.
"What do you want?" he asked again.
"We want to get the two of you away from Dalyth," I said simply. There was no point continuing to pretend. We'd wasted enough time as it was.
