Lunara went up alongside her. “Hedda?”
She was met with silence.
“We have to assume it’s Faldir’s,” Brand said quietly, one eye on them, the other on the ground.
Thad sidled up. “Do you think something actually dragged him down there?”
Sister’s save them, but that’s exactly where his mind had gone. As towhathad done it?—
“Dreadbeast.” Hedda’s voice was a haunted slur.
Brand hadn’t wanted to think it, let alone say it out loud.
The mythical monsters that allegedly inhabited the bowels of every chasm. Some swore they could hear their animalistic snarls and screams echoing in the dead of night, when no other sounds pierced the air.
In all of recorded time, no one had ever seen one. They were supposed to be nothing more than a chilling bedtime story that parents used to frighten wayward children.
Not real. Not capable ofthis.
“Ach, lass, those are a legend. Fiction.” Even Magnus didn’t sound sure, false lightness in every word.
Hedda’s head snapped up, violence in every line of her body and a crazed gleam in her eyes. “Are they? You saw what happened to those people. The same filth on their bodies, the same smell. What else could have done that?”
What, indeed.
She turned back to the chasm. “Real or not, we have to find him.”
Brand was inclined to agree, except…
He shared a look with Mag, no words needed. His brother saw it too—the desperation, the drunken, uncontrolled movements of her limbs.
Warriors had to be sharp, quick. Hedda was all over the place, more likely to make mistakes or act without thinking, and it would only end in tragedy.
No way she was going into the chasm like this.
Fuck, he wasn’t sure if any of them should go down there, or how, or…Fuck.
Brand straightened his spine and dug deep, calling on all of the authority he possessed—armor, for what he was about to do. “Second, to me.”
Hedda paused for the barest moment before she obeyed, planting her feet in a wide stance in front of him—or, at least, trying to.
He reached out to steady her, surreptitiously removing the axe from her hold and tossing it away. “I know you want to go after your brother,” he said, squeezing her shoulder, “but someone needs to get help, and reassure Caius that Thad is safe.”
Heddadidn’t noticethat he’d just disarmed her. Oblivious, her lip trembled as she raised her chin, lids blinking too slowly. “Thaddeus himself should do it then, Your Highness,since he’s not supposed to be here.”
What in the realms? He could barely understand her garbled words.
He kept his face bland and lied through his damned teeth. “You’re too weak in this form.”
Hedda reared as if he’d slapped her. “What did you just say to me?”
“You heard me well enough.”
Her lips peeled back. “You would forsake your own Second and let achildgo down there? A timid Sorcerit that’s afraid of her own shadow?”
An hour ago, he would have laughed and saidnever.Not in a million years. But looking at her, at the disjointed movements and the disconnect in her eyes…
“In this case, yes. If it keeps you safe.”
