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“Ark…” She was holding a piece of parchment in one hand. The closer he came to his mate, the faster the dread pooled in his stomach.
It was a page of the Russet Gazette, the city’s local newspaper. An illustration of a tree he knew by heart was etched onto the paper in forest-green ink. Above it, in printed letters, it read:
The queen has arrived in the Copper Kingdom.
“Leela, where did you get this?”
“The flyers were everywhere.” Leela’s face darkened. “They were on every lamppost, on all the shop windows. People were reading the Gazette and talking about it in the street…”
“Do you know if the king has announced anything?” Orion asked.
“No, sir.” Leela shook her head and continued stirring her stew. “I asked the potion maker when the news came out, and he said they delivered it this morning before sunrise. I thought you might want to know, so I ripped the paper off a lamppost on my way home.”
His palms dampened with perspiration, and he reached out for Nava. Did the king know the news had made its way past the castle grounds? Who could’ve leaked such information? Surely this wasn’t his father’s doing.
“Ark.” Nava’s small hand gripped his arm, but when he looked down, her lips shook as she pressed her palms to her dress, where her insects crawled all over.
So many more bees than this morning.
Orion frowned and stepped close enough that their bodies were almost touching. “Nava, what’s happening to the bees?”
She lifted her hand, a pained expression on her face. A small bee was stinging her.
“I don’t know,” Nava whispered and then met his eyes with a wild expression. “It must be Ari. He needs us.”
18
NAVA
It smelled faintly like a campfire out in the streets. On any other day, Nava would have thought it was the pleasant scent of firewood escaping through a chimney, but not today. Today it reminded her of destruction. Of death. The closer they got to the forest, the more nauseous she felt.
Of course, being this high up probably also contributed to the sick feeling in her stomach. They had left Leela’s place a while ago, and now a mass of sepia tones blurred so far beneath them that she could barely distinguish a street from a building. If it weren’t so dangerous for her to transfer to the forest on her own, she would have done it in a heartbeat. She’d prefer that over flying any day.
Her stomach was tied into knots as she snaked her arms around Arkimedes’s shoulders, digging her fingers into the back of his neck to find purchase.
“You’re going to choke me if you keep doing that.” He glared at her, rolling his neck so she released him. “For the last time, Nava, I will not drop you.”
“Sorry,” she blurted, her cheeks warming as she moved her hands to his shoulders instead. “It’s hard to hold on with the wings, and I don’t want to rip any feathers and hurt you…”
He scoffed, tightening his grip around her and underneath her legs. “We’re almost there.”
They cut through the stormy gray sky. Thankfully, it wasn’t raining as heavily anymore. Still, the icy drizzle remained, soaking her clothes and leaving her shivering. At least while it was so wet out here, the forest fire couldn’t progress.
Arkimedes had taken the long way around the castle instead of flying over it to avoid any accidental encounters with the guards.
“It’s been weeks since the demons came. I wonder if it takes the emissary this long to open a new portal or if there was something else holding him back?” If he needed time to regenerate his energy, that could be their saving grace.
“If a god owns his soul, then I’m sure he has other tasks that keep him from burning this world to the ground.” Arkimedes’s jaw tightened, and he brought Nava even closer to his body in a protective embrace. “Or from hunting you and Aristaeus.”
Leela’s home was a fair distance from the castle and even farther from the forest, so it took them a good hour to reach the trees. Arkimedes’s aura helped him carry her all the way without stopping to rest.
Finally, he began his descent toward the immense block of greenery beneath them. The air whipped around them as gravity pulled them to the ground. The taste of smoke covered her tongue, although there wasn’t a sign of flames to be seen.
“Fuck.” Arkimedes opened his wings to glide over the treetops, his arms shaking with strain. “The air is changing. Hold on tight, Bee.”
This time, he didn’t complain when her arms wound around his neck like ropes. They were flying close enough to the canopy now that the leaves swatted at her dangling feet.
“The fires are over there.” Nava pointed at the thick column of smoke that swirled angrily through the air, cutting the blue sky apart and casting a haze across the forest in the distance. “Ari has to be near the fire and the portal. That’s where we need to go.”
