Realization flared like lightning before he snuffed it out.No. His hands slipped on the gates he had replaced after Wrath’s tantrum. He fumbled with the key as he unlocked them.She’s safe.
“Petitor Anek.” He inclined his head, emerging from Aoran Tower’s wards.
Their head jerked toward him as pale as Cato. “Magus Supreme Kadra,” they said hoarsely, like they had been screaming. “I was calling for you, but your wards—you couldn’t hear me.”
“I found them outside.” Cato’s voice was barely a whisper.
The pieces fell into place again before he shattered the picture. “Has something happened to Cassandane?” Kadra asked carefully.
“No.” Despite their ramrod straight posture, Anek looked close to tears. “I’m sorry to have to say this, Magus Supreme. But we’ve received word from Méherre. She didn’t have much time, so I came to deliver the news. It seemed that Sarai paid a brief visit to Komis.”
Fuck.A bolt of agony burst down his spine when he tensed. “And?” he grit out.
“I don’t know how it happened, but there was a lightning strike at a market that tore down the western city walls. The death toll is in the hundreds. Petitor Sarai—” Their voice wavered, and he knew.
Blood rang in his ears, a war drum. His heart cracked like a sheet of ice.
He vaguely registered that he had snarled out a “speak” when Anek blurted out the rest. “Méherre says she’s unaccounted for, but they’re still looking. There’s nothing confirming her as…” They shook their head. “Wrath’s teeth, I can’t say it. She can’t be dead.”
He couldn’t move.
“Méherre said that she saw Wines Guildsmen call down the strike, but that they seemed to be acting under duress. She was by Sarai, and she got out alive. There’s a chance—” Anek broke off.
Sarai could be alive. She could be dead. And all because—Anek’s words finally penetrated his haze of disbelief and fury.Duress. Blood sang to him as strong as grief.Noceo.
The rage that swamped him was bone-deep. Tundra currents that would freeze all in his path, their screams still trapped in their throats. “Where’s Cassandane?”
Anek flinched at his menace. “Her tower. Look, Sarai could be alive—”
“Sheisalive,” he growled, bitterly noting the way Cato and Anek flinched.
Storming back inside, he saddled his horse. When Cato appeared at his shoulder a moment later, he barely listened to the older man’s pleas for restraint and set off for Favran Tower.
The ride was a blur of wind. Every hoofbeat a drop on a water clock, a second away from a time when she had been alive. His guilt at her Fall paled in comparison to the fissure that split him now. There was so much he hadn’t told her.
He wouldn’t allow it. He was Magus Supreme. If she was dead, he would go to that desolate dock facing Death’s barge and take her with him. The gods would not have her.
Gaius met him at the base of Favran Tower, features stark with shock. “I heard—” He broke off. “What must I do?”
“Inform me when Méherre returns.” Kadra dismounted. “I’m going to Komis.”
“Please don’t.” The doors to Favran creaked open. Cassandane emerged, red dressing gown wrapped around her, features pale but firm.
To Gaius’s credit, he didn’t waver for a second. “Certo, Magus Supreme.” He hadn’t finished speaking before riding off.
Pain and exhaustion made dark smudges of Cassandane’s eyes. “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling, but you can’t leave.”
“Don’t stop me, Cassandane,” he said, voice dangerously soft.
She flinched. “You hold a duty to more than just Sarai. We need you here.”
“Sheneeds me.”
Cassandane’s knuckles whitened around the doorframe. “Our people are being mass murdered! We don’t know the cause, culprit, or weapon, and the land is teetering upon civil war. No one here has seen true battle or can fathom what it’s like. They need leadership, and they will look to whom they believe best capable of quashing this.It isn’t me!”
“It must be,” he said coldly. “I won’t abandon her.”
“War needs blades not judges!Youare our strongest. Sarai wouldn’t want you abandoning everyone in Ur Dinyé just to run to her!”
