“Where is she?”
“Taken.” The word was as cold as the wind had been. I couldn’t speak. It felt like my gut had been kicked by a mule, and my lungs merely squeezed on the emptiness.
“By the storm?” Dustin asked. “Did the boat break up? Could she be floating, too?”
“No,” Alexios replied. “She was taken by the ice dragon.” He told a story of her being plucked straight up into the sky. “We were no more than a day’s sailing from Starvale, in a small skiff. The winds were against us, but we tacked north and east to work against the currents from Pict.”
“Pict. She was going to fuckingPict?”
He blinked at me, his dark eyes red-rimmed and oddly judgmental. “Of course she was.”
It made no sense. “Why? There’s nothing there but a cult. A volcano that belches soot into the air and fouls the currents.”
“She’sfromthere, though,” Dustin added unhelpfully. “I heard her saying. That was her home, wasn’t it? Maybe she’s got family there.”
“That’s not why she went back,” I interrupted. “She had no connection to that island.” She’d told me her mother left the island with her when Rada was a baby and that she’d never known who her father was. She’d never once hinted at returning.
“She never told you she intended to go back?” Alexios said softly. “That’s odd. It was one of the first things she shared with me.”
Another mule kicked me in the gut. “What?” I managed to say.
“Her mother was from Pict, young Dustin. But she was a slave. A breeder for the cult, as you say. Pict has always been the final destination on my mistress’s journey across the known lands. Goran, she has to go there, just as she had to leave you and travel the world.” He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “Ialways thought if you loved her as you seem to claim, you would have traveled with her.”
I bared my teeth. She’d told me about her desire to go to all the known lands, but she’d made it sound like it was for Vilkurn, all for the journey he’d sent her on. I could tell that wasn’t what Alexios meant. He never would’ve sent her to Pict. But I would have insisted on going with her, if I’d known she was going to try something that idiotic.
“She didn’twantme to join her.”
Dustin cleared his throat. Alexios hummed. He didn’t bother to call me a fool; his expression did that all on its own.
I tried again. “She made me promise not to follow.”
“Have you ever asked yourself why?”
My voice was raw when I could speak again. “A thousand times. But no means no.”
He was not impressed with my confession. “Normally, I would agree. But I’m not sure there’s any promise in the world that would keep me from protecting my mistress. I gave up my home and country for her, without a single moment of hesitation. I would follow her from the grave if I needed to.” He ducked his head slightly. “Of course, I knew who she was before she ever told me her mission.”
“That must mean they have imprisoned Omegas there, on Pict,” Dustin broke in before I could ask what Alexios meant by that. How could he have known her? “She was one of the trapped ones?”
Alexios nodded. “We were going there to rescue them. We had supplies for three weeks and a plan. I noticed something odd happening in the ocean. I thought we might have someone spying on us. But the feeling passed, so I thought we were safe, and alone. When I discovered how wrong I was, there wasn’t time to prepare. The dragon came from the sky, straightoverhead. He grabbed her in claws made of ice. All she had on was her cloak.”
“No clothing?” I demanded.
“No clothing, no weapons. Snow and slush almost filled the boat, covering me. I tried to reach for her, to grab on, but the thing was too fast.” He panted, like he was having trouble telling the story. “I think it was hurt when it left. It flew as if its wings were broken, so I’d hoped I could sail after it. It flew northwest, so I sailed in that direction, but an icy wind kept blowing me back.”
“How do you kill an ice god?” I asked aloud.
To my shock, Alexios answered, holding up the dagger. “I think with one of these.”
“One of the three daggers of fate,” I murmured, remembering what Rada had told me about it. “The only one that’s ever been found.”
“The one she’s had since she was a child and took it from a priest from the cult, who wanted to drag her back to Pict.” The pity in his eyes when he saw my surprise made me almost as sick as the next few swells that hit the boat’s side. “You were together for a year, Goran. What did you talk about?”
“We… Well, I wrote her poetry and we spoke in… other ways,” I said, not wanting to face the fact that this man knew far more about my wife than I ever had.
And possibly because I’d never thought to ask. She’d told me about her life, of course, but her stories and her scars had enraged me. I’d felt on the edge of feral every time I heard of the Alphas who’d chased and abused her. The stories behind the scars and her need to sleep in a bed with more weapons than most people held in their lives had incensed me.
I’d been too focused on what had been done to my wife—and intent on never letting it happen again—that I’d failed to see how much she was still hiding.
