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“Not where she’s fucking supposed to be,” Sebian growled. “Has anybody seen Tjema?”
Rage flooded my veins unfiltered. I would kill whoever dared to touch myanoaley!
“Find the girl!” My shout shattered against Asker’s shift. “Send every pathfinder in all directions of the sky. Search every dark corner in the Keep. Every narrow alley in Valtaris. Leave no building unsearched, no meadow unscouted!”
“Maybe it’s nothing,” Sebian said, but I saw the gulped swallow that bobbed his throat. “Maybe she’s with Tjema after all, and somehow she got hurt.”
“No, she never even took the soap out.” I slammed the satchel onto the ground with a shout that sent a brief burst of shadows up around me, letting the wooden comb inside noisily snap before the burlap slipped over the stone. “She never even got into the— What is that?”
Eyes locked on something beside the satchel, I hurried toward it and knelt down, only for my trembling fingers to reach toward…
Goddess, no. No…
Sebian squatted beside me and dipped his fingertips into the small smear of blood tinged with something else on the stone, maybe saliva. Even without bringing it to his nose, a shudder went through him, telling me everything I needed to know.
My mate was injured.
Bleeding. Dying?
With a growl, I shot up, five ravens dashing to the edge of the spring where I reshaped only for my primal shout to shatter from the mountainside. “Galantia!”
Several ravens fluttered into the cavity—one of the headscouts, as well as Asker and Marla, who shaped beside me.
Asker took in those restless ropes of shadows around me that whipped at the air before he said, “She never reached her maid.”
“We already know that,” Sebian muttered and rose, holding out his bloodied fingers. “This is her blood. She was attacked.”
“I’m going to kill them. I’m going tofucking killthem!” My threat still echoed the cave when I reshaped where they stood, my aorta pounding in my neck. “Who did this? Where is my bondmate?!”
“Let me try for a vision.” Marla gripped Sebian’s fingers and led them to her mouth, her eyes slowly falling shut, only for her eyelids to twitch rapidly at the first lick of blood. Then, her eyes ripped open wide. “He took her.”
“Who?” My hands balled into fists that barely contained those deadly shadows building in my core. “Who dared to touch my mate? Taradur? One of Brisdon’s minions? Another lord?”
She looked at me, her eyes filling with tears. “Aros.”
Aros.
That name hit me like slap to the face, putting a sway into my upper body that sent me stumbling sideways. I barely caught my balance as I braced my hand against one of the stone columns. Not Taradur. Not Brisden. No human at all. But of course not. They couldn’t even have come up here.
Aros.
A Raven.
A gray veil settled over my vision as a chuckle vibrated somewhere in my chest, amplifying the pain there. A lifetime of distrust and a decade of hate toward humans, and what had it gotten me? My bondmate, taken.
By. My. Own. Kind.
I breathed against the shadows building in my core. I’d done a great many regretful things in moments of anger, when my thoughts were sullied by darkness. This could not be one of them.Think, Malyr. Think!
“If he’d wanted to kill her, he could have done so here.” Was there blood? Yes, but it was little and diluted. She might have hit the ground and bit her tongue. “Neither does he have the means to keep her from me… not for long.” He might have betrayed me, but the Ravens surrounding him would rather slit his throat and return her than bring my wrath down upon them. What then? What? “Where is he taking my mate?”
Asker first exchanged a glance with Marla, then with Sebian, before he finally looked at me. “Ammarett.”
“Ammarett.” A stronghold not easily taken, keeping me away from her, compromising the power of my shadows, unleashing constant agony on me. The perfect punishment for all my failings—of which there were many. I should have tossed Lorn’s body into the ocean years ago. “He conspired with our enemies. For that, he will pay, but not until I have myanoaleyback. We have to find her before she reaches the city.”
“Malyr…” My name from Asker’s mouth never failed for my arms to double in weight. “He could be taking her north where the ground is still covered by snow. East, across the ocean. South, under disguise. West into Dranadia, where Barat’s scouts have been roaming. The possibilities are endless.”
“Not to mention that he probably sedated her,” Sebian added. “Malyr said his bond feels dull, which makes it pretty unreliable given the vast territory where she may or may not be. Malyr, the chances of finding her are slim.”
