I glared at him, but it held no true venom.
“Just bring everyone back, please,” I said instead, hating the pleading tone that slipped into my voice.
Canavar nodded and Nasi gave Kaida one last kiss.
The three of us watched them push off the rocky cliffs, heading due east over the horizon. Disappointment burned a hole in my chest, but I didn’t have much time to dwell on it.
“Now, if Wren is settled for the moment, you’re coming with me,” Nerissa demanded, no nonsense and walking off as though she expected me to follow.
“For what?” I asked, bristling.
“Actually, if Wren is well rested we should bring her,” Kaida suggested. “Her presence would likely help.”
Nerissa nodded. “Very well, let’s collect her.”
“For what?” I asked, annoyed to be bossed around on my own island.
Nerissa shot me a look that reminded me of being back in training, as a young drakling learning to wield a sword with Vilhem.
“The wards,” she drawled.
I sighed. “Very well. Wren was saying she wished to continue bloodmagick lessons anyway. I can at least be useful there.”
Kaida beamed. “That’s the spirit!”
I held out my arms to Nerissa, offering to carry her. She raised an eyebrow at me before resigning herself to the inevitable.
“Very well.”
We flew back to the treehouse, a plan for the day taking shape. It would be good to have something to keep me busy, and not dwell on Ronan’s mission.
Besides, it was critical we fix the wards. If I was to keep Wren, the rest of the kingdom, and my unborn child safe.Much less exciting than chasing down a rogue kidnapper, but important all the same.
Chapter Seventeen
RONAN
The farther north I flew, the more the world tried to kill me. Not with teeth or claws, but with cold, a cold that gnawed through my scales, turned the air thin and brittle in my lungs, and made every beat of my wings feel sluggish and late.
I was not made for this.
Sweat froze along my back spikes. My breath came in white bursts. The clouds ahead were iron-gray slabs pressing low to the earth, and the trees below had thinned into crooked pines clinging to stony soil.
I forced my wings wider, searching for the telltale scorch of Veskor’s fire or the hint of his scent in the air. Snow made it so difficult. I fucking hated snow. Drakens weren’t meant for fucking snow.
There wasn’t a whisper of heat or anything else in this frozen wasteland.
I dropped lower, letting my claws skim the top of a pine.Snow shook loose in a glittering cascade that stung across my snout.
“Damn it …”
I’d been chasing for hours. My senses were blunted by the cold, my muscles stiffening with each mile, but I couldn’t stop. Perri was out there somewhere, Veskor’s prisoner, that poor, little drakling with the mismatched wings and the sweet, chirpy laugh. Gods, her parents’ faces when she vanished.
I pushed harder.
A scent hit the back of my tongue a moment later: not draken—not Veskor?—
Wolf.
