“I changed my mind. You are a terrible illusion.” I sighed heavily and stared back at the ceiling. “It is a wonder I didn’t perish. Thirteen days without blood.”
“As I said, these stones are protective.” His teeth flashed with his smile. “You are fortunate they found you.”
“Okay,” I mumbled, not understanding. “They found me? They travel around S’Kir all willy-nilly, wherever they please?”
He opened his arms wide, his smile disarming. “As is the power of Ota’ano.”
“That is quite…illuminating.” I snickered.
The gems tittered along with me, enjoying my joke, even if Mr. Delusion merely rolled his eyes.
Perhaps it was a bad joke.
Iwasdelusional.
Give me a break, Mr. Delusion.
“I can whip something up while we wait if you would prefer Belshazzar’s company over mine.” His brows lifted at my glance. “Don’t get too excited. It is a simple scrying with air.”
“Do it,” I breathed swiftly. “I need to see him.”
Mr. Delusion lifted a pointed finger into the air and twirled and twirled his digits. The wind fluttered my hair as he whispered under his breath, staring at his work. A yellow circle began to appear before my eyes, and…a wavering image of King Belshazzar appeared.
A sob broke past my lips. “Bel…”
His dark eyebrows puckered. He glanced left and right, waves of water clearly behind him. He swayed where he stood as if he were rocking and trying to stay steady.
“Can he hear me?” I whispered.
“No, but he can feel something is watching. He is powerful enough,” Mr. Delusion stated. “He’s on a boat right now, heading for you.”
If only this were real…
My chin trembled, and a tear leaked out of the corner of my eye. I tried anyway by shouting, “Bel!”
King Belshazzar continued to scan the area, his chilling blue eyes narrowing with suspicion. His black hair whipped in a wind I could not feel, and his fangs flashed quickly, anger starting to overtake his features.
Mr. Delusion snapped his hand, closing his fist over the image, clearing it away. “We don’t want to alarm him, Gwen. Just know that he is coming for you. Soon.”
“I hope that is true.” I shut my eyes, weary down to my bones. “I cannot hold on much longer.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kimber
Short River Gorge loomedabove us. It was not the low, distant forgiving gorge that was the inlet of Niallan’s Spit.
The wind-beaten, gray granite rocks loomed at least a hundred strides above us. There were jagged, fallen boulders close to the walls of the gorge, and more above that threatened to fall.
From what we could see above us, there was nothing but blue-gray wheatgrass. No bushes, no trees. A few weather-hardened sheep and the occasional high-elk that littered the mountains in S’Kir.
The gorge framed occasional distant glimpses of high, wind-sculpted, frozen mountains with snow on every peak and cascading down a few into valleys below and out of sight.
“How far can we go up this river?” Belshazzar asked.
“They said it’s safe for navigation six leagues up,” I answered.
“There’s a small village there where we used to buy ice for storing blood,” Aiko said.
