“Kaelen.” I leaned forward, fingers tightening on the saddle handles. “What happened?”
“The others have something to deal with,”he said, banking into a turn that would take us back toward the castle.“Nothing that concerns you.”
Bullshit.
I’d spent too many months reading lies in the spaces between words to miss the evasion. Whatever had spooked him, whatever message the dragons had passed between each other while I was focused on not falling to my death, it was bad.
“Don’t.” My voice came out sharp enough to cut. “Don’t you dare try to protect me by keeping me in the dark. What. Happened.”
Kaelen was quiet for a long moment, his wings beating steadily as we ate up distance. I could feel the war happening inside him, the desire to shield me from whatever horror awaited versus the bond between us that made lying nearly impossible.
“Varyth’s been taken,”he finally said, the words dropping like stones.
Everything inside me went very, very cold.
“Taken,” I repeated without inflection. “Taken how? By who?”
“Nyxarian soldiers ambushed him on the road back from the western territories. They haven’t made it out of Luceren yet. Lincatheron tracked them to an abandoned fortress about thirty miles from here.”His voice was calm, but I could feel the undercurrent of fury beneath it.“The others are going to intercept before they can cross into Nyxarian territory.”
My mind was already racing, calculating distances and timeframes and all the ways this could go catastrophically wrong.
“How long ago was he taken?”
Kaelen hesitated. Just for a heartbeat, but it was enough.
“Two days.”
“Twodays?” The words exploded out of me with enough force that Kaelen actually flinched mid-flight. “He’s been captured for two fucking days and no one thought to mention it?”
“You were—they thought—”He struggled for words, which would have been almost funny if rage wasn’t currently burning through every vein in my body.“They didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily.”
“Unnecessarily.” I laughed, and it was a vicious sound. “Right. Because why would I care that the High Lord who’s been keeping my children safe has been kidnapped by the same people who’ve been hunting me since I crossed the Veil?”
“Isara—”
“Take me to where they are,” I cut him off. “Right now.”
“Absolutely not. You’re going back to the castle where you’ll be safe with Mireth and Eryx while the people trained for combat handle?—”
“I said take me to them.” Black fire ignited along my arms, and Kaelen’s scales rippled with discomfort where they touched. “Or I swear to every god that might be listening, I will jump off your back right now and walk there myself.”
“You don’t even know where ‘there’ is.”
“Then I guess you’d better tell me before I start experimenting with whether shadow fire can give me flight.”
Kaelen made a sound that was half-snarl, half-laugh.“You’re absolutely insane, you know that?”
“I’ve been told.” The flames climbed higher, responding to the fury and terror warring inside my chest. “I’m going, Kaelen. With or without you.”
A flash of movement to our right, Fenric’s grey dragon had drawn closer, those calculating steel-blue eyes fixed on me with uncomfortable intensity. His dragon must have informed him of my demands, because after a long moment, he gave a single nod.
“We’re going,” he called across the distance. Not a question. A statement.
Brynelle’s silver dragon moved into position on my other side, and I caught her expression, concerned but resolute. Shaelith’s black beast fell in behind us, completing the formation.
“This is a terrible idea,”Kaelen muttered, but he was already adjusting our trajectory, angling away from Edrithas and toward something I couldn’t yet see.“He’s going to kill me for this.”
“He has to survive long enough to kill you,” I said, and the black fire burned colder. “Now fly faster.”
