“Your father sent men to find Lori. She was already in Lephas’s care when they did.”
Raxx halted but Faye trudged past him through the snow, her eyes widened as she stumbled into the clearing. The snow was saturated with blood. All around, bodies lay motionless in the snow. Fresh graves had been dug just a short distance away. Was that Raxx’s doing? She felt a wave of nausea hit her, but the princess swallowed it back.
“Of course. Any father would send his men to rescue his daughter.” Her voice cracked.
“Tell me, princess, why would your sister flee the scene with my commander if these men had meant to rescue her?”
Faye didn’t answer. Her throat constricted and she held her breath.
“I don’t know what happened here,” Raxx continued. “But it certainly doesn’t look like a friendly retrieval mission to me.”
“Where did Lori go?” Faye whispered.
“Come.” Raxx gestured for her to follow him and stalked off through the bushes. Faye averted her gaze into the canopy. She watched the snowy pines wavering in the breeze and her vision began to swim with tears.
“Here.” Raxx pushed some bushes aside and pointed to a disturbance in the snow. “These tracks lead right to the edge of a cliff. Two people. No one was dragged or forced – your sister was running with Lephas of her own free will.”
“What if she was tethered to him or—”
“The tracks diverge apart from one another for a moment a little further up. She wasn’t tied to him,” Raxx explained.
Faye took a deep breath to steady herself. “Show me?”
The demon nodded and walked on. The wind picked up as they got closer to the cliff and Faye pulled her scarf up over her face to protect herself from the bitter chill. They eventually stopped and Faye took a few tentative steps forward, looking out over the edge.
“The tracks end here.” Raxx sighed with frustration.
Faye stared out across the beautiful expanse of forest that sprawled for thousands of miles before her. She glanced down over the cliff again.
“Did they go over?” she asked.
The demon shook his head. “They would have never survived a drop from this height.”
“And there are no other tracks anywhere?”
Raxx shook his head.
“Then they jumped.” Faye nodded. “I wouldn’t contemplate it if I was sound of mind, but if I was desperate and frightened, I might be tempted to glide from here.”
“Glide? You think your wings would hold long enough?” Raxx asked curiously, glancing down to the forest below them. His eyes sparkled with renewed curiosity.
“Would yours?” Faye countered.
Raxx looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding. “Probably.”
“I think mine would too – or at least they’d hold long enough for me to fall from a much more survivable drop.”
“I’d never considered that,” Raxx muttered. He glanced across at her, eyeing her with interest.
“What?” Faye scowled.
“Would your wings hold if, say, Ididn’thave my own wings and we hurtled over the edge together?” he asked.
Faye swallowed, her mind conjuring up the image of Lori leaping over the edge. If Lephas’s build was anything like Raxx’s, it would have been a struggle to say the least.
“Lephas doesn’t have wings, does he?”
Raxx shook his head. “I’m an oddity in that respect.”
