“Duran, look at something for me?”
“Of course.” He held out a hand, and I turned the book to him and shoved it across the table.
“Left page, about halfway down. Do you see the temperatures of Eygin?”
Taking no time at all to locate it, Duran’s eyebrows pinched together. “Cold.”
“Very. More so than anywhere else that I’ve found. Even places deeper in the mountains. Any idea why?”
The others were listening now, Clem leaning closer to take in the book, but no one spoke as Duran considered.
“A geological reason? The town is between large mountains and at elevation. The cold might get trapped in the valley between the peaks?”
“Possibly,” I replied, not convinced.
“I can’t say for certain,” he admitted. “This isn’t my area of expertise. I?—”
A hard and fast knock came at the door. Thyra’s spine straightened as she rose. Bac was traveling with Arie and my sister had given only Brynhild leave to interrupt us.
However, when Thyra opened the door, Brynhild did not stand before us. Rather, Aleksander, our half-brother who had bonded with the winged symbol of the Falk royal house, stood there.
“Aleksander,” Thyra frowned. “I did not wish to be interrupted.”
“Well, you’ll want to hear this.” He swept inside, not asking to be invited. The skin-changer’s ice-blue eyes, twins to Thyra’s, locked on me as he held up a scroll that gave off the scent of old leather. “I sent my Arla out last night. Had a feeling there was something she needed to see, and I was right. I came straight here after I understood the devastation I was seeing.” His voice cracked.
“Devastation?” Thyra asked. “Where?”
“Move the books.”
We did so, and Aleksander rolled out his scroll to reveal an age-spotted vellum map of Winter’s Realm. When his hand veered to the southwest of the map, my eyes widened. And the moment he pointed to a spot tucked into the Red Mist Mountains, my heart plummeted.
“Here. The same place that the king and Lord Lisikastopped in,” Aleksander said. “Arla was flying above and things looked suspiciously quiet, so I told her to look. She did and—by the dead gods—I still cannot believe what she found. An entire town, dead.”
“No,” I whispered. “Are you sure?”
“I had her fly down chimneys into homes. Through the tavern's chimneys too, if she could. Most windows were shuttered, but one or two weren’t and those inside were dead too.” His lips tightened. “There’s far more to explore, but a hawk cannot get to it all. From what I saw, though, not a soul survived.”
A sob wrenched out of my throat, and Thyra turned to me. Her face had gone so pale. “Neve?”
“It’s the same place I was just reading about. We traveled through there days ago. The place is called Eygin and, stars alive, the fae there were kind to us and now they’re dead!”
The smile of the bard who had sung to us came rushing back, and an avalanche of emotion pummeled through me. Had I done this by traveling through there?
“Your presence didn’t bring the monarchy down on them. Both the king and Lord Lisika left days ago via a nearby mountain tunnel. We saw no sign of violence in the village at all,” Aleksander replied as if trying to assure me, though his face was grim as he spoke. “From what I saw, the villagers looked like they’d frozen to death.”
Chapter 41
NEVE
Only two things kept me from succumbing to the grief that grew with each update from Aleksander. One: Vale’s hand in mine, and two: The promise that soon, we’d fly west to see if we could find any survivors in Eygin.
Hours had passed since that moment in the library, and Aleksander continued to use Arla to patrol the villages. So far, my skin-changer half-brother had only supplied us with an updated body count. No good news at all.
Thyra had since called every rebel to the dining hall. Bit by bit, she put a plan in place, and the most important part had come from none other than Thantrel.
The youngest Riis’s mother had been an elven noble so, like Caelo, Thantrel had great control over animals. His ability to speak with them, to reason with them, to convince them, was why so many had been able to ride the gryphons and pegasi—proud creatures, both. Thantrel had said we should take the flying creatures west, thereby cutting downthe travel time considerably. Between Thantrel and Caelo, they would work to keep the temperamental creatures happy when they were flying in freezing conditions.
“I believe we should also write to House Balik.” Vale added his idea to those being tossed out for review.
