“Xamor’s hounds, he is,” Ryker said, sounding just as surprised. He tightened his hold on me as we both watched the impossible right in front of us.
Each time the wind changed directions, Dax got dragged along with it, making my power stir with worry.
Old Protectorate powers could call upon the winds, but not fight them.
“He’s got courage, I’ll give him that,” Ryker muttered. “The machinery might work, but it’s too unstable to use in war.”
“I was thinking the same.” Still too fickle, too risky. Maybe with improvements, they could turn dangerous. But time wasn’t on our side. “Pity.”
Quite a pity.
Those Serpents deserved to have explosives dropped on their heads.
“It still doesn’t explain how he got into the crater,” he went on, voice dropping. “Solkar’s Reach should have spit him out.”
“He said he cut his hand in one of the rim’s shards,” I said. This was more important than the feelings threatening to spill from the tip of my tongue. “You mentioned a blood ritual.”
A secret one only he–and apparently I–knew about. How could he reveal so much of him and his land, but still hold on to that suspicion? He’d shown me Solkar’s Heart, the crater’s cradle of power, yet he somehow thought Dax’s arrival was one big conspiracy.
“It shouldn’t have been enough for an outsider. My father was an awful, wandering man,” Ryker said dryly. “But I’m fairly sure Dax and I are not related so the crater could sense a connection between my blood and his.”
Related–
I yanked my gaze off Dax for the barest moment, to look up at Ryker. “But he’s related to me.”
Only the wings and the wind dared to break the beat of silence that passed.
“You are indeed. Though you were a stranger mere weeks ago–” His jaw clenched tighter as he finally looked at me, sending tremors down my spine. His ice eyes swept over my face, looking for something I didn’t know how to reveal. “–you were a stranger who could see Solkar’s Rays and hear its Song.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
My power had connected with the crater’s during the attack, and the purple lights and hum had accompanied me more than I would have liked; they’d even tried to warn me about Orion.
“I don’t know,” he admitted with an edge, frustrated that he didn’t. “But we’ll find out. Together.”
The knot of worry in my stomach loosened, but not enough.
I ripped my gaze from his, turning it back to Dax, heart the size of the snowflakes swirling around as he soared through the air.
The tension between us lingered, forcing the words past my lips. “Didn’t seem like you were thinking abouttogetherduring the meal.”
There.
I’d said it.
It wasn’t the right time for it, but the uncertainty would have gnawed at my mind until I would have set it loose.
Ryker’s sigh warmed the soft hairs on the nape of my neck. “Your cousin is difficult, but I should have handled that better.”
“I can’t handle you going at each other all the time. We have bigger issues to deal with than pride,” I muttered.
A corner of Ryker’s lips quirked, as he watched Dax’s ascent as carefully as I did. “Says The Huntress.”
“Yes, I do.” I gulped as a gust of wind carried Dax higher and higher. Every Protectorate member knew the wind could be friend or foe, but I’d never witnessed it so plainly. “I really didn’t know he was coming.”
“I know,” Ryker said, sounding surprised I’d even considered that.
The tension on my shoulders eased. He…did?
