That would have worked on Mak ordinarily, but his shoulders rounded, every line of his body threatening.
“He’s been like this since she landed,” Shula told me as I joined them, Nabil giving me a once-over. The line of his shoulders softened, as if he could only relax with all of us in his direct line of sight.
“She?” I asked, but then I saw the silvery-blue feet visible beneath the splayed membrane of Mak’s wings. He wasn’t threatening—he wasprotective.
Let me see her,I asked him carefully, keeping my tone neutral, mild.
His lip curled back from his teeth, and he growled again, only feral instinct in his crimson eyes.
Makrukh,I said, and took a measured step closer, jerking my chin at Sabira and relieved when she didn’t fight me, falling back with my legion.Mak, let me see her. You know I’d sooner harm myself than hurt Raheema. She’s family. She’s bonded to my wife. I’m not a danger to her.
His teeth disappeared behind the tense line of his lips, but a rumble charged through his chest, and when he lowered one wing enough for me to see Raheema’s head and her long neck, to lock eyes with my wife’s wyvern, I realised why Mak was so protective.
“Someone get Hiba,” I yelled. Hiba was one of my ummi’s closest friends and the most skilled wyvern healer in south Ithanys.
“Shit,” Nabil swore, because there could only be one reason Raheema would need a healer.
Blood poured down her neck, decorated her graceful face, and I knew if Mak lowered his wings entirely, I’d find more injuries. “Who did this?” I asked in a voice of shadows and death, taking another step closer. “Raheema, who did this to you?”
She lurched forward when her silver eyes met mine, a low, mournful sound leaving her, and I drew to a halt, everything inside me going still when Mak told me the meaning of that sound.
Ameirah was taken. They say she’s the lightning soul, and they’ve locked her up where Raheema can’t reach her.
Ameirah was taken. Caged. Locked up.
I didn’t breathe for long seconds, unmoving even as the wind tore at me, even as my legion murmured questions.
When air again flooded my lungs, I used it to say, “We fly to Morysen. Now.”
“Varidian…” Aliah began, grabbing my arm.
“They arrested my wife,” I snapped, pushing her off. Rage gathered, a slow build that would give way to a storm. The lightning soul didn’t warn me to control myself, though. Rather, I sensed a matching rage from her. “They put herin a cell.”
Zaarib grabbed my shoulders, and dug his fingers in until it hurt, until I was forced to stop. “Going alone is suicide. We can’t fly into Morysen without backup. It’s the seat of your father’s power, Varidian.”
“Well aware, thank you,” I bit out, Mak’s protective anger merging with my own, creating something as hot as a freshly forged sword.
“We have allies, Varidian. I know for a fucking fact, my uncle and cousins escaped the flames of Daurith; they’re out there, probably flying here as we speak. There are other commanders who’d stand with us against the king—”
“You’d be asking them to commit treason,” Aliah pointed out. “That’s a lot to ask of someone.”
“The Torn Isle might help,” Nabil said, drawing all our attention. “If we pitch it the right way, make it seem as if they have just as much to gain as we do.”
“Contact them,” I said with a rough nod. “But give them five hours to reply, no longer. Zaarib, Aliah, you’re with me. I want a clear plan to get in and out of Morysen before the sun has even risen. Shula—” Where the stalwart, reassuring presence of my friend usually was, I found only air.
“She went to fetch the healer,” Aliah gently reminded me, as if she could see the way I frayed at the edges. The dream, Raheema being hurt, Mak near feral, and now this—my wife, locked in the dark beneath the palace. In cells I knew far betterthan I’d ever wish. I pressed my hands to my thighs to force the tremble from them. I would get her out by the day’s end.
No wonder she was afraid in the dream.
We all flinched when the sky darkened, heavy clouds moving in overhead. My throat bobbed, the gulp near painful as Nabil’s rich brown eyes softened on me. “We need to talk about Fahad,” he said with difficulty, his voice the same choked mess as mine.
“We don’t have time. Every minute we delay, Ameirah is at his mercy.”
I waited for them to snap,and whose fault is that?But that was only my own voice, my own loathing.
“Varidian,” Aliah said in a voice so gentle it made the lump in my throat bigger, hurting. “We all miss him. We all—” She paused when her voice cracked. “His absence gnaws at every one of us, every second of every day. You’re not alone.”
I set off toward the diamond, urgency hammered into my blood, into my bones.
