Cassian was frantic, pacing, pushing his fingers through his hair.
“When did you see her last?” Orion asked slowly. She had to be somewhere in the grove because there was nowhere else she could go.
“Last night. We had dinner and she retired early.”
“Did she say she was leaving?” If she left the grove, she could die.
“No. She was quieter than usual, and didn’t eat much, but she promised that nothing was wrong. Just that she was tired.”
This was his fault. If his pushing Nina to marry him and her voicing what her life would be had sent her from the grove, and to a potential death, he would never forgive himself.
She wouldn’t harm herself. He knew that with a certainty. “Have you checked the grotto?”
“The nereids claim she has not been down there.”
“What of the dryads.”
“They searched the grove, and listened, but she is not there.”
Orion rubbed the back of his neck trying to think where she could be. “What about where she likes to hide and spy?”
“I looked. She is not there.” Cassian blew out a sigh. “That is not all. Her tree appears to be dying.”
At those words, Orion sprinted from the mansion. He had to find her before it was too late.
Where had she gone and why?
She wouldn’t risk death, would she? Or was that her intention? Had he pushed her too far?
As soon as he reached the other side of the cove and entered the grove, he began to call her name, but there was no answer. His heart pounded against his breastbone when he noted the dry, shriveled limbs of her tree. The tree was dying, but not yet dead, which meant she still had to be alive.
Heart pounding, he rushed to the temple. All he found were the five dryads.
“Do you have any idea where she is?”
Their expressions were filled with worry.
“Is there a place that she can go that we have not looked? A place she enjoys.”
“The orchard,” one of them said. “We have not checked the orchard.”
Orion didn’t wait for them to follow but ran from the sacred grove. She had told him she had visited the orchard but had grown weak. What if that is what happened this time and she was trying to get back?
As soon as he saw the first trees, Orion began shouting her name over and over, but there was no answer.
She had to be here. She had to be somewhere.
That’s when he saw the cloth. He had almost missed it because it blended in so well with the grass.
Rushing forward, he rolled Nina to her back and tapped her cheeks. She was so cold and pale.
Her heart was still beating, and he could feel a pulse. Except, that wouldn’t last long if he didn’t return her before it was too late.
Scooping her up in his arms, Orion dashed back to the grove—to her tree and stopped, his blood running cold. It was already dead.
He gently placed her on the ground willing it to live. Willing Nina to live.
“Nothing can be done now,” one of the dryads said.
