He took note of my quirked eyebrow. “Means ‘little serpent’ in Old Tongue.”
Serpent? I could think of worse names for him. “The barbarian language?”
Daigen sneered. “Barbarian? If that is what you call those who were here before the invaders from the south showed up, fine.”
I wrinkled my nose. Alastar the Conqueror had founded the Dukedom of Lycaster more than four-hundred and fifty years ago, that would make Daigen…
“Yes, I am quite old,” he said.
I jerked my hand out of his. “I told you to get out of my head.”
He crossed his arms and smirked. “I didn’t need magic for that one. Part of the fun of being ancient is that I know what most people are going to say before they even open their mouths. Humans are much more predictable than you want to think.”
I scoffed and knelt in the snow to retrieve the Hyton dagger. The frost creeping across the bronze bull’s-head hilt bit my palm as I picked it up.
“You’re a sorceress who wields a power stronger than steel or silver,” Daigen said, “and yet you still reach for that ugly thing.”
I glared at Daigen as I rose. Derrick had given me the dagger supposedly as a symbol of his love and protection. I had strung him along a fabricated romance for seven years, but maybe I held some sentimental value for a weapon from a starry-eyed friend.
I tied the dagger to my belt of linen scraps. Friend. Derrick was not my husband like I had planned nor my lover like I had wanted…he was just a friend.
Maybe even less than that since he was still a Hyton.
“Although,” Daigen said with a fanged smile, “seems that you and I have a similar attachment to weapons.”
With a flick of his crimson claws, his curved blade appeared in his hands. I turned my head to the spot where his blood still stained the snow. How had he retrieved his knife from all the way over there?
“Se-ra!”
I whipped my head around. I could barely make out the outline of two ravens against the night sky. The birds soared over the tall boulders and dove in the air toward me.
“Se-ra! Se-ra!” The birds croaked.
I huffed out a breath that swirled in the frigid air. Of course those ravens had to come back.
The last time the ravens showed up, poison like black fire had raged through my body. I had no idea how a bird could have poisoned me, but ravens were not a good omen. Even though they were my family’s symbol, the rest of Lycaster saw them as bringers of Death and misfortune.
Daigen wrapped his claw around my left hand. “Not the opportune time for a reunion. Shall we take our leave?”
Before I could even nod in response, the air became heavy—no, the air was moving, like thousands of tiny beads trembled around us.
The ravens’ great black wings flapped harder as they flew closer. “Se-ra!”
Suddenly, a memory of fragrant tea on a winter night entered my mind as the wind tickled my ears.
Before I could indulge in the memory, or even question where it had come from, the invisible beads in the air swirled around us. Sparkles of white and purple flashed in my vision.
I blinked and the swirling stopped. We were no longer near the tall rock formation, but instead at the glowing healing spring.
Daigen had transported us through the air.
He released my hand and walked toward the cerulean glow of the healing spring. “Feel any different?”
I held my cape closed. I hated that I knew exactly what he was asking. I was just at the healing spring with Riyan mere hours ago, but I felt like I was somewhere new.
Just like when I had poked my head into Erik’s and Endre’s empty bedrooms after they died, the surroundings might have been familiar, but the place was completely different.
The warmth and safety I had felt with Riyan in that spring was gone.
