“Leave Cirro to me.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Raxx muttered.
“I’ll take a small troop of men with me, just two or three. I don’t want to garner any unwanted attention. If Lephas and Haros are missing, our priority needs to be on retrieving them.”
Raxx didn’t argue. He knew it was pointless when Zelrus had made up his mind. Raxx didn’t outright disagree with the king’s choice of action – he wanted to retrieve his friends as much as Zelrus did – but he had a knot in his stomach. Should he allow the king, demonkind’s only real hope at overthrowing the faerie capital, to venture to meet Cirro alone?
Perhaps if he made good time, Raxx could get back to Banesteppe before Zelrus left to meet the faerie king’s brother. With a bit of luck and some serious hard work, Raxx was confident it wouldn’t take him long to locate his friends.
Besides, how far could they have gotten?
* * *
Raxx hammered his fist against the wooden door leading to Oriel’s room. When no answer was forthcoming, he knocked again.
Still nothing.
Rolling his eyes with an agitated growl, Raxx faded into the shadows. It pained him to invade other’s privacy – though it was astoundingly easy for him to do so, and he often over-heard or saw things he wished he hadn’t – but this was an emergency.
Raxx focussed, using his majick to fade further and further. It wasn’t easy maintaining such a high level of disembodiment. It was a massive drain on majick and energy. Raxx held on long enough to pass through Oriel’s door and reappeared on the opposite side.
Typically, Oriel was ‘entertaining’ a woman, but Raxx was thankful that the prince’s evening hadn’t progressed to the bed just yet. The shadow demon grimaced with embarrassment and cleared his throat.
“Apologies for the intrusion, but... Harla?” Raxx’s eyebrows shot up with surprise as the familiar face of one of Tabitha’s witch cohorts turned to face him.
“Raxx.” Harla greeted him with a nod.
“For fuck’s sake! What are you playing at?” Oriel glowered at him, before faltering and turning to look at the witch. “Wait, you know him?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Harla got to her feet, making no effort to cover her bare breasts as she grabbed her tunic from the floor. Raxx felt himself bristle with suspicion. What was Harla doing here with Prince Oriel? He didn’t have time to consider it, worry for Lephas flooding the forefront of his mind once more.
Oriel turned to Raxx. “You’d better have a good reason for bursting in here, or so help me I’ll—"
“Lephas and Haros were ambushed. They haven’t returned,” Raxx interrupted. He was relieved to see Oriel’s face fall into a serious, sombre expression. The prince was on his feet in seconds.
“How do you know this?”
“One of their soldiers made it back. Barely. The others were all slaughtered,” Raxx replied.
“Shit,” Oriel hissed, running a hand through his hair. The prince strode away to a wardrobe on the opposite side of the bedroom, shrugging on his leather armour. “Any idea what’s happened?”
“None yet. All I know is that they’ve been ambushed by the King’s Guard and were vastly outnumbered. I’m hoping to piece together more of the puzzle later on.” Raxx turned his attention to Harla. “Do you need a hand getting home?”
The witch shook her head. “Sweet of you to ask, but I will be fine. See you around, Del’Raxxin?” Harla caught Oriel’s eye as she sauntered past and blew him a kiss, exiting the room. The prince did not return her sentiment, looking pale and lost in thought.
“The princess was spotted west of here, right?” Oriel sat down on the edge of his bed and jammed his feet into his boots, bending forward to tie the laces.
“On a farm track, yes,” Raxx replied.
“Shit. The King’s Guard are that close to Banesteppe? That’s not good news.”
“My thoughts exactly. I have a vague idea of where this ambush happened, we just need to find it. I thought we’d start by retracing Lephas’s steps and hope we can come across something that points us in the right direction from there.”
In truth, Raxx knew he would move much faster without Oriel in tow, but the shadow demon wasn’t about to defy King Zelrus’s orders. Besides, he was sure the prince was keen to track down his friends. Lephas and Oriel were close and had known one another since they were teenagers – and he could do with the help if he accidentally stumbled across more King’s Guard soldiers.
“You’ll find them alright without me, yeah?”
Or not.
