“I have no fucking idea.” He leaped to his feet. “Ycken, Falcrest, get to the cave, and find out what’s going on.” His gaze locked on Khayrivven’s. “Whatever that thing was, it kicked my projection out of there.”
Khayrivven’s heart jerked into a gallop. Lory was facing one ofthemup there, alone, and he had no way of reaching her without Lenya forcing his hand.
“Sir, if I may,” he started, earning a forbidding glance from Brunn as Lenya cocked his head, waiting for him to continue. “I could use my dream weaving skills to check in on Ashling Vednis and see if I can find something inside hermind. If she’s still alive, that is,” he amended, hoping his bravado didn’t fail him at the thought of Lory dead.
Lenya dipped his chin. “I don’t care if Vednis lives. Break her mind apart if you must. I want to know what lives up there in the mountains that we haven’t noticed in almost twenty years of war. If the Criu rebels have a new weapon they’re hiding in the caves, I want to know what it is, what magic it possesses, and how to destroy it.”
With a wave, he motioned for Khayrivven to close his eyes, and the sigh of relief lodged in his throat nearly escaped as familiar darkness closed in on him, a dream spinning from his imagination, but Lory wasn’t anywhere to be found. Not a trace of the infuriating Flame hovered in the dreamscape.
When Khayrivven opened his eyes once more, meeting Lenya’s expectant gaze, lead filled his stomach. There was only one reason he couldn’t find someone on the dreamscape: They were dead.
“I can’t reach her.” Khayrivven wrestled down the panic surging inside him, throwing a knowing glance at Ycken, who seemed to have expected as much.
With a flick of his fingers, he extinguished the hay pipe and made it vanish in his bag, then got to his feet and gestured south, where the Amrin Mountains loomed. “Let’s go.”
Thirty-Three
Lory
The rocks weren’t uncomfortable,just cold—so cold that shivers raked through Lory’s body, head to toe, long before she opened her eyes to the dim light of what could have been sunrise or sunset. A thin stripe of pink peeked through the otherwise gray-on-gray of the cave, where Lory remembered collapsing under the scrutiny of what she couldn’t describe as anything other than a lion-deer-horse. So large, it had peered down at her with its head lowered and its eyes glowing like what a sunset on the moon must have looked like.
“A long time you have slept, Elory the Flame,”that same deep, rumbling voice narrated as she rolled to her side with a groan. She would have bruises on her hips and shoulders,and most certainly on her knees; pain was already blooming as the fabric of her pants slid over them.
None of it mattered when the shadow with antlers stepped out of the darkness gathering at the back of the cave.“Eat must the Flame.”The beast lowered its head once more, and Lory fought not to panic as its slender lion head came close enough to touch.
Instead of taking a bite out of her, it sniffed, then circled her on legs longer than a lion’s and shaped like a horse’s, except for the massive paws; they were clearly wildcat. Its long tail swished, part hairy cluster like a horse’s and part hairy snake, like a lion’s. Actually, there were two of those long, hairy ropes swishing in rhythm with the beast’s movements.
If she remained still, the creature might forget she was there or become bored.
What had Khayrivven said? That the mountains were infamous for playing tricks on people’s minds?
This must have been one of those tricks. Perhaps there were some gases floating through the cave, and Lory had fallen prey to their effects and was hallucinating what clearly couldn’t be.
Forcing down a shallow breath, Lory scrambled back toward the cave entrance, but the creature leaped over her, landing silently on claw-adorned paws.
“Stay, she must. Eat she must,”it hummed, sniffing at her.“Bathe she must.”
The way its tails swished nervously made Lory wonder if the creature was considering her as a meal only after she’d cleaned away the sweat and blood and soot of the battle she’dsurvived only because of Tabi, Thal, and … Aiden. A bone-deep sadness swallowed her at the thought of the young man’s lifeless body.
“Slept she has enough. Eat she must. Strong she must become.”The creature kept circling her, cutting off her escape route.
With a sigh, Lory decided the beast would have long swallowed her whole if it had wanted, its gleaming teeth certainly sharp enough to cut through tendons, cartilage, and bones, and from the looks of it, Lory’s neck would have easily fit in its maw—perhaps her entire head.
“Are you real, or am I hallucinating you?” If the creature didn’t go away by blinking about fifty times, Lory figured it was worth asking.
“Real we are. Just like the Flame.”A hint of annoyance flickered in its lilac eyes while the rest of its body remained gray-on-gray, thanks to the dark cave it wouldn’t let her out of.
“That’s what I would say if I were a hallucination.” Shaking her head, Lory attempted to get to her feet, but her legs refused to carry her, too shaky from running through the mountains and climbing up to that Guardians-forsaken cave while using an excess of her magic. She made to crawl past the beast on her hands and knees when it leaped into her path, a deafening roar emerging from its open maw, and Lory shrank back, falling on her ass and staying there, hands covering her ears and eyes shut against certain death.
“Not an illusion,”the creature growled in her mind, and for the first time, Lory actually felt like she was no longer dreaming.“The Flame has come to set us free.”Soft thudspadded toward Lory, and when she opened her eyes, the creature had lowered its head so much it was level with hers, and hot, stinking breath rushed over her face.“The Flame has heard us.”A blend of pride and reverence reverberated in the creature’s tone, but its eyes remained those of a very intelligent predator who had already figured her out.
Set us free, Elory the Flame. The voice had called her. His voice. With a glimpse at the long, wavy hair growing around the creature’s neck in a blend of lion and horse mane, Lory confirmed it was a male.
Cautiously, carefully, Lory lowered her hands from her ears, bracing one on the rough cave floor while holding out the other for the creature to sniff like she might have done with a dog or a horse.
The creature shook its head, antlers almost catching on Lory’s already torn sleeve.
“A pet we are not.”It chuffed, tails swishing like those of a cat ready to leap at a mouse, but it didn’t move from its spot in front of Lory, close enough to touch.
