His beast roiled as he emptied the satchel and hurriedly tugged on his clothes and weapons.I can’t smell her. I don’t think she’s here.
She had to be there.Had to. Luka jogged down the alley to the front of the store, past the polished mhoba wood sign, whispering a prayer to the Mother.Please. Let Izzy be here. Let her be safe.He thumped hard on the door, shouting, and then lifted his hand to knock again when it opened.
Ryland looked out, his dark eyes full of confusion. “Luka? I thought?—”
Luka pushed past him, quickly scanning the clean, quiet shop. “Where is Izzy? Is she upstairs?”
She’s not here, his beast rumbled just as Ryland replied, “She’s not here.”
“What do you mean she’s not here? She has to be here. She left the castle hours ago!” Luka’s voice rasped. His hand settled on the hilt of his sword, a reflex reaction to threat, even thoughno threat was near. His claws were so long and vicious that they clicked against the leather wrapping on the grip.
“I haven’t seen her.” Ryland settled into a ready stance, his hand moving to rest on his own sword pommel. Iridescent turquoise scales flickered at his throat as he responded to Luka’s stress. “Could she have stopped in the market? Gone to a clinic?”
“No.” He’d flown over the market. She wasn’t there. And more than that, he knew she was in danger. He knew, deep in his bones, that something was wrong.
Ryland’s intelligent gaze skimmed over the heavy scales spreading over Luka’s face. “What happened?”
Luka quickly filled him in, explaining how they’d realized that Dashiell was running Firebreather and had almost certainly killed Narya to stop the treaty with Kwanam.
And he killed Rayan.
Luka almost stumbled. God of Chaos. His beast was right. Rayan must have found something, maybe even at the clinic in Naos. If Dashiell was anything like they suspected, he wouldn’t have hesitated to destroy such a threat. The realization was brutal… and his beast wasn’t finished.
The kit list Felix mentioned… could it be Dashiell’s?
Luka’s breath caught in a flood of agony. Could Izzy have tried to send him a note? Could the sergeant have somehow intercepted it and changed it for a random piece of parchment he had on him? Redirected it to the kitchen. Made it look like he was sending Izzy’s message?
If he did, then Dashiell was already with her when she left.
Fuck. Panic clawed at him. Dashiell must have intercepted Izzy and convinced her to go somewhere with him. But where would he take her?
She’s… I think she’s on the mountain.
“I have to go.” Luka started stripping off the weapons and armor he’d only just put on and thrusting them back into the satchel. “I’m going up the Nabasberg. He’ll take her on the path.”
Ryland paced beside him. “Why there?”
“Sarwin said that Dashiell goes up into the Nabasberg to harvest buchu leaf, but what if he goes up there for something else? Something to do with Firebreather,” Luka explained grimly. “Either way, he knows it well. It’s where we found Narya, and where we expected to find Rayan. I have to start there.”
“Okay.” Ryland didn’t hesitate. “What do you need?”
“Find Shane first. Tell him everything. Then come and get us.”
“I will.”
“Thank you.” Luka flung himself out the door, unbothered by his nakedness or the stares of the people nearby. He called the mountain heat before he even reached the street, feeling it surge toward him.
His beast howled and roared inside him, thrashing so violently that it was a relief to open his arms and hand over his skin. The change was brutal, but within seconds, he was in the air, beating his wings to lift off the street. He gripped the satchel in one claw, angled into the updraft, and rose steadily through the air.
He oriented himself and sped toward the mountain. It called to him more than ever. Heat and power sang in his blood. He soared over the market, past the darker, rougher parts of the city, ignored the shipyards and the sprawling harbor, banked, and then he was over the Nabaspath.
It twisted and turned, rising steadily before leveling out to wrap around the mountain. He scanned the dusty path, the rough brambles, the wind-stunted trees, and the sharp rocks at the mountain’s base where the ocean crashed. Terror and rage churned inside him. How many hours had he spent scanningthis stretch of cursed mountain looking for Rayan? And Rayan had been dead all along, his body already floating in the cold waters of the Hugabian Deep.
Was Izzy already dead? The thought nearly took him out of the sky.
She’s alive.
Gods, how he wanted that to be true. “How do you know?” he whispered at the back of his beast’s mind.
