Unleashed, Tarn had said.
She would show him unleashed.
CHAPTER 29
Zev
“We are too late.” Rawn’s defeated words crashed in Zev’s ears like rogue waves as he watched Tarn’s black ship sail away.
He sat on his haunches and howled at the sky. How could Dyna simply leave him that way? His paws scraped the planks as he restlessly paced at the edge of the dock. How would they catch up to her now? Where was Tarn taking her? Was she safe?
Another howl ripped from his throat.
Rawn rubbed his face. He was rumpled and windblown from a long ride here, worry settling on his exhausted features. “Would she have taken Fair with her on the ship?” he asked him.
Zev whined. He didn’t have an answer, but Fair and Dyna’s scents were all over the dock.
Closing his eyes, Rawn took a breath. “I pray they are together. If not, then Fair will find me.”
Zev hated this. Having their group separated felt as if they had been split away from him somehow, as if he was walking on only three legs.
He huffed, and the inhale of air uncovered another familiar scent. It faded beneath all the others, mingled with the sharp smell of…
Zev rapidly shifted back on two legs, startling Rawn. He heaved heavily, staring after the ship vanishing over the horizon in horror. “Gods…”
“Zev, what is it?”
He yanked on a pair of trousers Rawn handed him and stormed away. “Von was here.”
“Here?”
“We have to go after them.”
“Yes, well—wait, Zev. What is wrong?” Rawn tugged him to a stop.
“I caught Von’s scent,” he exclaimed. “Along with the scent of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur.”
Rawn’s eyes widened. “Huyao.”
Xián Jing gunpowder.
They turned to Elon, where he waited on the shore with his brown stallion and Onyx. He accompanied them here, per Sylar’s insistence. But that may not have been the only reason.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Zev growled.
The red elf’s expression didn’t change from its permanent stoic state. His black cloak cast his face in shadow as it rippled in the breeze. “Von is the Guardian of Vengeance. This is his purpose.”
“Vengeance?” Rawn repeated. “For what?”
“When Von tried to escape, his wife was killed.” Elon looked out to sea. “He lives now to rectify that.”
Zev’s chest heaved with rapid breaths, and he snatched the front of Elon’s cloak. “And when were you going to tell us Von planned to blow up Tarn’s ship?” he shouted. “Dyna is on it!”
Elon broke Zev’s hold with a swift sweep of his arm, and the next blow to his chest knocked him back a few steps. Zev wheezed, gasping to recover the air knocked out of him.
Retrieving the reins, Elon returned to the road. “We cannot stand in the way of fate.”
What did that mean? Did he say that because they didn’t reach the boat in time, or because Von was meant to do this?
