“What happened to them?” I asked in shock. “His children are missing?”
“And Farla,” said Dayn.
Wolf rounded the trunk, but rather than coming to me, he trotted on into the small field behind it. There was something in the long grass where he stopped. He looked over at me, whining. I followed, approaching cautiously. When I realized what I was looking at, I gasped. One wing was torn, or cut, from his body, the other obviously broken, his head missing.
“I’ve found Tylok,” I called back to the others, my voice quivering.
Redvyr was suddenly beside me, setting me gently away from the corpse of their friend. The others rushed over as well.
“What is this?” Bezaliel hissed with disgust, looking at Redvyr who was crouched over Tylok, observing his injuries. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
Mishka and the other wolves approached, planting themselves in a circle around us, facing outward. They were watching for the enemy.
“A barga would’ve dragged him into the woods to eat him,” Leifkyn noted. “And this isn’t nightvyrm territory.”
I’d heard of the giant serpents who lived in the Solgavia Mountains, but I was glad to know they didn’t venture this far.
“Where are Farla and the children?” Tessa hauled Saralyn off her back and clutched her close in her arms, as if she might get snatched away too. “Was there any sign of them, that they might be injured by whatever this was?”
“No sign of them at all.” Redvyr stood, scowling. “Only a struggle.”
Tessa blinked away tears, turning toward their home in the tree.
Bezaliel sidled closer to Redvyr. “Could it be Meer-wolves? Like the infected ones who attacked once before?”
I stepped closer. “What attack before?”
Redvyr’s expression hardened, his tail flitting back and forth behind him. “Several months ago, King Goll encamped farther south from here, but still in beast fae territory. His camp was attacked by three wolves who were sick in some way.”
I scoffed. “In what way? You’re making it sound so cryptic.”
“That’s because we’d never seen it before.” Redvyr caught my gaze and held it. “But I’ve seen it since.”
I swallowed. “The dryad stag.”
He nodded.
“I don’t think it’s wolves,” said Leifkyn, crouching in the snow where a tuft of grass stuck up, holding something he’d lifted out of the scuffed-up powder.
Redvyr marched over to him. “What did you find?”
Leifkyn dropped something long and spindly in Redvyr’s hand. “Tylok must’ve sliced it off in the fight. But what the hell kind of creature is that from?”
I stepped closer and peered at what Redvyr held. “Gods below,” I whispered. “What is that?”
“A finger,” answered Dayn, staring at it with disgust.
I arched a brow at him. “Obviously. But from what?”
The skin was dark grayish-green, the digit extraordinarily long and thin, the pointed black claw razor-sharp and curled. Black blood oozed out. Dark fae bled blue. I’d seen more than one get a busted lip or come in with an injury from the road when I worked at Haldek’s. But it wasn’t this sickly color.
Redvyr growled at the severed finger of this unknown creature, this killer, in his hand. “There was more than one of them.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I can smell the scent of this one here around Tylok’s body, but there is a different scent up there in his home.”
“Redvyr, we should”—Bezaliel started then suddenly whirled around, unsheathing his sword.
