“I don’t know,” I admitted, making my way over to her while trying not to wince as I took in the beaten and emaciated form of my best friend. “Bryna is her name. She’s the one who’s been running and organizing the hunters’ markets in Kylma, or so we think.”
Milly was silent for a bit, her eyes sunken and exhausted, missing their usual vibrancy. “Why is she looking for you?”
“I don’t know. That’s new. Did you see the way she looked at me?”
“Yes.” Fresh torment scraped its way down my spine.
“Why?”
“That is the question, Mil. She had all the hunters looking for someone with purple eyes. She wanted me here. But why? I’m nothing to her. We’re nothing.”
Milly cleared her throat.
I glanced over, seeing fresh bruises around her left eye this time as it turned moretoward the door.
“What?”
“What if it’s not about you, Na?”
I stiffened. “Caz?”
“What better way to get him to come here?” Milly suggested. “Away from his power base in the citadel.”
“A trap. It’s all a trap,” I whispered, understanding flooding me. “But Caz would tear her apart. He won’t come alone. She can’t realistically expect to win.”
Bryna reappeared in the doorway, a silver band of metal in her hand. “Oh, but I can. And I will. You’ll see.”
Two trios of bearded men with wild hair filed in past her, taking up positions on either side of me. Two of them hauled me to my feet by my arms, holding them out wide.
I looked left and right. They weren’t dragons. That much was obvious from the start. I sniffed at the air.
“Weres?” I hissed as the thick, musky smell of wolf hit me like a cloying stink. “What are you thinking?”
Another of the wolf shifters moved behind me, gathering my hair up on top of my head and then yanking it back painfully to expose my neck.
“Ithinkwe have been looking forward to what is to come foryears.” Bryna spat, advancing onme with measured steps.
The ends of the collar clinked against one another ominously with every step, announcing her intentions.
I summoned every ounce of energy I had, focusing it on one thing while I still had free will.
Caz!
Forty-Two
Casimir
Something pulledmy attention northward. The landscape of Kylma panned below me as I swung my head in that direction. Peering down my snout, I looked for some sign of what had prompted the prickling sensation down the ridges of my spine.
Stone crunched underfoot as my talons dug deeper into the roof of the Lookout, my perch high above the capital of the Ice Kingdom. My kingdom.
Below me, lights flickered in windows and endless flows of people moved through its streets. Dozens of dragons came and went all the time. Thousands of my people were living right there. Right now.
And none of it mattered to me
What I sought out was beyond the high walls of the inner city and beyond the smaller walls that had been constructed as Kylma grew ever larger. It was beyond the plains and rock-blasted landscapes that stretched as far as the eye could see.
Was that what called me in this direction? Wasit Anna? Somewhere out there, in the wilds and alone, my mate was alone. Without me. Because I had let her go.
