Then I stood, spinning in a circle. I was mindless with panic.Think, Syera. He needs you.And he did.
That thought, like it had so many times, induced a temporary calm. One that would get me through the battle. I could fall apart at the end.
I burst away from Grandfather and blurred around the perimeter of our shack.
Footprints.
Anything. Any sign.
Sand was not kind to those wishing to move without a trace, whether demon or critter. Unless a person took particular care, they would leave a clear path.
I wrenched to a halt at the sign of tracks.
Nismus prints trailed into the distance, and the larger tracks of a running adult disrupted them.
Adeuto knew how to cover his tracks, so he might have fled in another direction. That was more plausible than him escaping on the back of a nismus.
Except really, I didn’t need to know where Adeuto was. He might be on the nismus, or he might have escaped undetected by Athira.
What I needed to do was to kill Carmine’s mother.
Hertracks led this way.
That was where I would go.
I started to run.Blur.I sprinted harder than I’d ever sprinted, even when fightingfor my life.
Adeuto was worth more than me.
I sprinted over dunes, sending critters scattering in every direction. They’d traveled so far—so much further than Adeuto would have been able to manage on his own legs.
Please let him be wandering the desert.I could find him in a matter of hours.
My lungs squeezed for air as I pumped my arms and legs harder, portaling at intervals when I could see the footprints extending ahead.
The tracks dropped into a deep dune and rose up the other side. I readied myself to open a portal, but arrested my sprint at the sight of Carmine’s mother atop the opposite dune. She was crouched, dagger drawn.
I could hear the nismus grunting over the next dune.
“Keep it up, Neti,” a little voice called from the same direction.
My heart froze. Everything I was shriveled and died.
Adeuto was here too.Onthe nismus.
Carmine’s mother glanced back at me, and ice chilled me to the bone at the calculation in her gaze.
I opened a portal and stepped through.
And when I arrived on top of the dune, it was empty of her presence. I pulsed my magic to find her, then peered down into the next valley.
At the nismus and Adeuto, and at the dagger to Adeuto’s throat.
I screamed and roared at the same time, and I couldn’t say whether my legs or a portal dragged me to the bottom of the dune.
But I was there in one mindless second.
“Stop,” Athira ordered.
