I flicked my tail with pride as I quietly ran through the halls and down the stairs, clinging to the shadows.
Must find my girl.
She’d been missing for hours, and I’d grown restless and irritable from both missing my girl and the lack of food. Particularly that delicious orange fish she ordered for breakfast each morning and placed on the floor for me in its own little dish.
I licked my jowls at the thought.
Faylinn, first. Then fish.
The lower I descended, the louder voices became. There was shouting and sobbing, emotions thick enough to taste.
Where is their leader—that man with the creepy eyes? Or the other one that staredat my Faylinn when he thought no one else was looking?
Clearly, neither were to be found, if the alarmed discussions were any indicator. A lithe woman with tattoos across her chest—done by my Faylinn, of course—was animatedly talking with the big, hulking Mage that visited Faylinn in Isrun for a time. She always locked me in a little wooden crate when he visited, and I experienced things no feline should ever hear or see.
Even so, I begrudgingly liked him.
It seemed that they were the de facto leaders, directing men and women in various states of exhaustion to clean the building and find survivors. I paused on the stairs as I listened to their conversation.
“They’re not here.Noneof them,” the woman hissed under her breath. Her Vessel grunted in agreement.
I liked that one.
“They can’t have just disappeared, Sol. We all saw Torin leave with Ellowyn. But Rohak? Faylinn? Lex? Theyalljust didn’t vanish,” Ben grumbled as Asha absently stroked his back.
The woman scoffed. “We saw Faylinn drag Rohak in here, but we’ve searched as well as we can. They’re not here. We have to act as if they’re both?—”
“Don’t you say it, Sol. Don’t you fucking say it. They arenotdead,” Ben said with vehemence as he turned his large body toward the woman.
I growled quietly in agreement.
The woman responded with something, but I didn’t listen—my girl was somewhere in here with that grumpy man she was so fond of. I’d find them, then I’d be rewarded handsomely.
Preferably with a new pillow and an endless supply of that orange fish.
I scampered down the stairs, leaping effortlessly over fallen stones, some three times my size.
Faylinn would be so impressed with my skills.
The destruction was alarming—several of the buttresses in the entryway had fallen, the ceiling they supported collapsing to the floor as well. I saw a few random hands and feet sticking out from under the fallen rock; clearly, the collapse happened too quickly for the soldiers to move out of the way.
Those who survived worked tirelessly without their magic to clear the debris the best they could. Though some of those boulders would be impossible to move without the aid of an Earth or Destruction Mage.
I’ll find that Destruction General. Then he can help.
An enormous boulder blocked a hallway—much too large for a person to squeeze between the wall and the rock and much too tall for someone to climb.
But not impossible for me.
With a growled “meow,” I slunk down and pulled myself along, belly to theground. I grumbled the whole way, my fur snagging on the jagged edges of the rock as the hair on my stomach cleaned the dusty floor completely, but I was able to sneak through relatively unscathed.
“Meow!” I sang in triumph before I spent a moment cleaning my paws. I deserved it, after all.
The hallway beyond the boulder was relatively untouched, the prominent destruction from the entryway almost nonexistent here. There were a few closed doors, but most stood open, and I bypassed those quickly.
Faylinn would not have kept the door open. She’s smarter than that.
I flounced down the hall, pausing to sniff at several closed doors before I caught a familiar scent.
