“Who?” My mind was spinning. “Who answered you? This Serak, or?—”
She cut me off. “Guess it doesn’t matter if I say it out loud now. His name’s Edan. I’ve only talked to him once, but he seems like a real piece of work. He used Serak’s voice, though.”
“A fire god. Edan. You know his name.” Suddenly, all the times she’d snuffed out every candle, or moved away from a fireplace or campfire before speaking of our missions, made sense. “You believe there is a fire god on Pict? Alive, in this world? Not just a cult of false god worshippers?”
“Yeah. I’d kinda wished that, too. But we had a chat back in Mirren. He’s real.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“You were a priest. It seemed… in bad taste. Also, I try not to think of the arserag.”
I half-wished I were back on my horse, since my knees felt like they might give out. I’d known for years that Pict was her final goal, the last nation that would get an apothecary for itsOmegas. It had been her rush to finish her work in Mirren and travel to Pict, before her bargain with the Goddess was up, that had led to her capture.
She couldn’t go, if there was some evil god waiting there. Especially not since the Goddess couldn’t use her… I felt dizzy for a long moment, seeing the threads in the pattern for a flickering second.
Her voice brought me back from the epiphany. “...didn’t know if he really was an evil god, or if it was just his cult followers who were twisted. You know how people like to do awful things and blame it on their god. Anyway, Edan has some pretty odd magic. When I was tied up and burning, I heard him in the flames. He called for Rada.”
I swallowed hard. “You answered him?”
“I swear it sounded like Serak. But I answered, and then it was like the world stood still? Except for the burning. That kept on. Serak—or whatever was using his voice—made a deal with me. If I promised to come directly to Pict, to the place he called the Alldyns Vug, he would keep the flames from consuming me. He even gave me a gift, to make sure I could travel faster.” She lifted one of her boots. “He unburned my feet. I think he did that part just so I’d know how powerful he was. Show-off.”
“What does he want from you?” I had a sick feeling that I already knew.
She shuddered. “He said I’m his bride, that I was born for that purpose. He wants what any power-crazed evil god would want with an Omega, in a fucked-up fairy tale. To breed me.”
We mounted again in silence. I closed my eyes for a few minutes as we rode, forced to rely on the years of breathing meditation practice I had not to scream out my rage. Finally, I had control. “We cannot go to the seat of his power, Mina. Tell me we’re not going to Pict.”
“We always were,” she scoffed. “You knew that. The final apothecary, remember? I’ve heard too many rumors of an Omega camp, a sort of breeding colony. Hells, my mother fled the place, and I’ve had more than a dozen assassins and spies over the years try to find me to take me back. They all knew my name, where I was from, and knew about the knife I carry.”
I sighed. She’d gotten that from a Pictish spy she’d killed in Rimholt when she was ten. She adored the blade, but it always made me feel unsettled. Something about the way the dark gems glittered on the surface, or the dark blade itself.
I’d cleaned it many times since she’d accepted me as her valet. She didn’t need to know I’d cleansed it with sage under every full moon and washed it in blessed water from every temple we’d come across since then. The feeling was far more muted now, though I would still prefer her to use a steel dagger.
“I understand you want to save the Omegas on Pict, if they’re there. But this changes everything. You’re being drawn there by something powerful. You’re certain it’s not the same creature from the sea?”
“Not at all! That thing had… well, allure.” She sighed wistfully.
“Allure?” Goran, Kellin, Lachlan, Serak, and…Oh, absolutely not.I started praying as hard as I could.
“Yeah, I know. He was a bit too murderous and godlike, really. But so commanding. So strong and primal. If it was a shifter, and I was free to dip my toe in? You know I like a challenge. I bet that thing would be a real hurricane in the sack.” There was a break in the trees, and she called out toward the sea. “You’re not a shifter, are you, Ice Dragon?” There was no answer, of course, though both of us stiffened when a hint of a cold breeze blew past.
“What in the hells?” I muttered when the breeze was gone. “Are you joking?”
She burst into laughter. “You have to ask?” Then she whistled to her horse and rode away before I could protest.
I absolutelydidhave to ask… and didn’t. I pressed a hand to my head and then to the sky in the sign I’d been taught before I could ever speak, asking for assurance that the ice dragon was not one of her mates. Instead of calm, I felt an undeniable sense of affirmation.
No.It wasn’t possible….
As I watched the sunlight sparkle on the dark hair of the woman I loved more every day, even as she rode away from me, I knew it was not only possible that the elemental ice creature she’d met, the one who’d tried to kill her and the Omega selkie, was intended for her.
It was probable.
Goran, Kellin, Lachlan, Serak, and the nameless beast.
RADA
The journey to the fishing village of Starvale and the purchase of the boat went far faster and easier than I’d dared hope, thanks in part to the map I’d filched from Goran’s generals. It was incredibly comprehensive, practically every damned deer path sketched in. The coastline was even more detailed, with each tiny cove hand-inked onto the waterproofed parchment. Weirdly, there was a tiny sea monster swimming along the edge of the sea, but everything else was true to life.
