12
NERI
Isift across the beach and grab the back of Thibault’s leather vest, but not before he senses my presence and whirls, thrusting the razor-sharp edge of his short sword to my throat. It bites into my skin, and a warm trickle of blood slides into my collar.
Though I would rather do anything than seem weak, I drop my head back against the stone wall and close my eyes, smelling the metallic quality of the sanguine fluid now soaking into my shirt. Not because he surprised me or because I fear his blade.
But because the world is tilting.
On a better day, of which I’ve had many, this wouldn’t be normal. Such weakness is an effect of my sifting, of this increasingly unnatural disconnection I feel, as though I’ve expended my power after a few short travels. It’s greater and occurring more frequently than the typical fatigue I remember experiencing centuries ago. Back then I could go for days using my powers before exhaustion set in.
I think of the alleged curse Fia Drumera mentioned, then I remind myself that Fleurie needed rest from portaling, even after several weeks of restoration. God I might be, but I suppose that even though it’s always happened so near instantaneously for me, I now need time to heal.
Un Drallag lowers his weapon as I open my eyes and take two deep breaths to shake off the dizzy spell. Once the world feels righted, I point between his chest and mine and jerk my head toward the main house.
He nods with understanding. The energy radiating from him on this gray morning signals that he’s already primed for attack. But there’s a question in his scrunched brow as he looks around me.
My thoughts slip across the beach to the east. I point toward the rocks, so he knows where I left Nephele. She’s been too ill for me to place her in the middle of a possible melee. I just need to end it quickly. Need her safe for a matter of minutes.
The others—Zahira, Callan, Keth, Jaega, and Joran—read the situation. As lightning flashes, I see the need on the captain’s face to come with us. I nod once in agreement, and she slips across the sand, shoulder against the stone wall, and crouches near me and Thibault.
“Get us inside,” he says to me, his voice low between gusts from the sea.
“To my library,” Zahira adds, offering strategic advice for the home she built with her own hands.
With a call of the wind and aether, I do just that, hoping for the best.
Though part of me didn’t expect to succeed, we indeed arrive in the library, in a funnel of blustery air, leaving a scattering of frost on the exotic rug beneath our feet. A sense of relief tingles up my neck, but it’s overshadowed the moment the darkened room swims around me, lit only by dawn’s stormy light, filtering through a windowpane now mottled by the beginnings of a cold rain.
I all but collapse against a bookshelf. Acting as though I tripped over the rug’s edge, which is ridiculous because gods don’t trip, I press my hand to the spines to steady myself.
Thibault narrows his eyes. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”The word sails from my lips like a dart. “For a wolf, there’s too much going on in this house, too many sensations. It’s all hitting me at once. Give me a fucking minute to adjust.”
Sensations like weakness, for one. But beyond that, the home’s aroma bombards me. I note hints of jasmine and lavender, pale woods and sea salt, figs and vanilla. All the pretty things I sensed in Joran’s body but couldn’t experience fully like I can now.
But underneath all the pretty things, I smell blood. Days-old blood. Though the coppery scent has all but been washed away by myrrh-scented soap and well water, the wolf in me still sniffs it out.
Someone died here. Finn Owyn, if I had to guess. Revenge taken for what I did to Rooke.
I hope Finn was the only one.
Quiet as shadows, we move across the library and frame each side of the door that leads into the main hall, Zahira at Thibault’s back. Again, my equilibrium balances itself, but just as I train my ear toward any sound I can pick up on, Thibault jerks his head for us to move onward.
I reach across and grab the sleeve of his tunic, tugging him back. Tohisear, I suppose the home is quiet, save for the wind rattling the chained shutters outside, making them clatter against the side of the house.
My wolf, however, hears mortal sounds. Like the blood that hides beneath a layer of normalcy and loveliness, these sounds hide under the soft din of white noise from a low-burning fire and the weather’s windy roar outside.
But they’re here. Murmurs. Footsteps. Breathing. Heartbeats.
“The women are in the great room,” I say, keeping my voice down. Yazmin and the tiny witch who sensed me so plainly inside Joran’s skin our first night here are quiet but chatting. “There are men in the house as well. Two are with the women, guarding the door that leads to the gardens.” I cock my ear and lift my nose, only to hear the soft creak of wood and scent the aroma of roasted fish as someone who smells a lot like leather and steel sits for a bite of food. “Another is in the kitchen. None of them are Harmon or his sons,” I clarify before he even inquires.
“And outside?”
“I can’t tell at this distance. Four I know of. Between the main house and lighthouse.”
“Yes, four,” Zahira clarifies. “We saw them too. But there could be more guarding the vestibule and main gate. The city wall, too. We could be surrounded.”
