His arm tightened around me. “That was incredibly dangerous,” he said tightly.
I turned to look at him, and I found his expression laid bare for once. Jaw clenched, and the promise of murder in his eyes.
“So you admit it’s dangerous to eavesdrop on the man I’m supposed to marry?” I asked.
“I think it’s no secret that Lord Heron is a potential threat to you,” Talon said carefully.
“I needed to know the truth, especially now that my handmaiden is missing. It wasn’t long before the emperor told Lord Heron to send more servants to that creature.”
“The head steward told me that all of the missing servants had been summoned by Lord Heron before disappearing,” he said heavily. “I assumed it had to do with Ozul, but this confirms it.”
“And what do you think the creature does to them?”
He hesitated for a moment, and all I could hear was the whistling wind. “The old stories have always warned that the creature feeds on the souls of the living, leaving walking corpses behind.”
My vision narrowed to a single feather on Neo’s head as every muscle tensed. From the moment I saw that creature in the throne room, I knew it was dangerous. But this was a living nightmare. “Lord Heron demanded that the emperor hand me over to the creature, but he refused. For now.”
“He what?” Talon said, his voice dangerously quiet. Gently, his hand touched my cheek and turned my head toward him. His expression was murderous. “That snake threatened you? I should have killed him when he tried to have those possessed women assassinate you.”
“He wants the emperor to give in to the creature’s demands. Ozul was asking for me. At least, I think it was. It kept saying, ‘Bring me the girl.’ It said it wanted my power.”
“I won’t let it have you,” he said, his body tightening around mine. Our gazes caught and held. My breaths came quicker as though we suddenly flew through thin air again. “I should have never brought you here.”
My eyes widened. “It wasn’t your decision. You couldn’t have known—”
“I should have put it all together faster,” he said, breaking eye contact with me and plunging one hand into his hair in frustration. “Altair asked Ozul to scry for the queen, but the coordinates led me straight to you. I think it has wanted your power all along. Altair has been resisting handing you over to it because he knows if he does so, he’ll lose what little control over the creature he has. I think it’s physically weak right now—starved for souls. That’s what has kept it hidden away in the west wing this whole time.”
Again, a desperate need to escape this place filled me. I wanted to beg Talon and Neo to fly Shazeera and me back to the plains, to the dubious safety of my own people. At least there I wouldn’t face constant threats of assassination. But then what would thecreature do? Consume all the souls in the palace until it was strong enough to leave? And then what? It had to be stopped.
“How can we kill it?” I asked Talon.
“I combed through all the old stories. Most of them are fragments, and none ever tell how to destroy the Devourer—but there must be a way.”
I thought about it as the wind rushed past my ears. When the shadows possessed Lady Corvina and Lady Starling, the wind chased away that dark power. What if I had the ability to destroy the Devourer, at least when it was in a weakened state? I asked Talon, but his arms immediately tensed around me.
“The risks to you are far too great,” he said.
“You said it was starved for souls and unable to even leave the west wing. Surely the time to do something about it is now?” I glanced back to look at him, and his jaw was clenched like he’d rather not even consider any of this.
“Yes, but what if I’m correct and its main goal has always been to consume your power? Even if you are willing to risk your life, then there’s the possibility that it may use your power to fuel its strength and become unstoppable.”
There was always the risk, too, that using the wind to defeat such a creature might finally sever the bond between Shazeera and me. I wondered, then, if I could reconnect with Mistral. Would he even tell me what I needed to know? I thought of how fast communicating with him drained my energy last night.
“If I try and contact the wind spirit again,” I said to Talon, “will you hold on to me? Last time I spoke to it, I could barely stand afterward.”
His eyes widened at that. “You can communicate with a wind spirit?”
“Not very well—and only one other time. But I thought he could at least tell us if the Devourer can be defeated.”
He nodded solemnly. “I will keep you safe.”
With his strong arms around me, I closed my eyes and focused on the steady current as Neo flew.
Mistral?I thought, and the noise faded, like I had entered a bubble of quiet. I could feel the wind listening.
After a moment, I heard a voice directly in my ear, but it was little more than a whisper.You have summoned me, wind caller, but you still lack the strength to maintain a connection.
His words brought awareness to my body, where even after only a moment’s conversation, my breaths came harder.
