“Yes. I’ll tell Baralt she may have recognized someone. He doesn’t need to question her if she doesn’t want to be questioned, but he can increase the watch.”
She nodded, but the unease stayed with her through dinner, through the quiet evening in their quarters, through the long hours of the night when she lay awake listening to Njkall breathe.
Tess had seen something. Something that terrified her more than anything else in Port Eyeja.
What could be worse than everything she’s already survived?
Unable to sleep, she rose before dawn, but when she went to the healer’s cave, she found it empty.
Tess’s things were gone—the warm-weather clothes they’d bought, the small bag of personal items she’d accumulated, the rough blanket she’d refused to part with. The furs where she slept were still there.
She’d left sometime in the night. Alone. Without a word.
Polly stood in the empty space, her heart pounding.
She ran,she thought.But what is she running from?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Njkall crouched next to Tess’s pallet, one broad hand pressed flat against the furs where Tess had slept. The stone beneath still held a trace of warmth, faint but unmistakable. He knew the cold of these mountains the way he knew his own heartbeat, and this told him what he needed.
“How long has she been gone?” Polly asked anxiously.
“Not long,” he said. “A few hours, no more.”
She hovered in the entrance, arms wrapped tight around herself. He didn’t need to see her face to know she was holding herself together with the careful stillness of someone bracing against panic. He’d watched her fight that battle a hundred times, and he’d watched her win it more often than she gave herself credit for.
“She can’t have gone far,” she said. “Not in the dark. Not in this cold.”
“No.” He rose to his full height, ducking beneath the low stone arch. “Which is exactly what concerns me.”
Cera appeared from the deeper caves, her healer’s satchel already slung across one shoulder. She’d noticed the empty bed and sent for him just before Polly arrived. Her sharp eyes moved from the furs to his face.
“She took the warm-weather clothing,” Cera said. “The offworld things Polly bought her. Nothing suited for the mountains.”
He felt the words ripple through his chest. A human female, alone, in the deep cold, dressed for an ocean planet. She would last hours. Perhaps not even that.
“Rouse the warriors,” he said. “The ones who can track. Talvek, Osun—anyone who knows the eastern slopes. Full cold gear, thermal wraps, ration packs. And send word to Baralt. He needs to know she’s missing.”
Cera nodded and was gone, her footsteps quick and certain against the stone.
He turned back to Polly. She hadn’t moved from the entrance, but her grey eyes had taken on a focused quality he recognized. She was thinking. Beneath the fear, that quick mind was already working.
“Where would she go?” he asked. “You know her, little one. Better than anyone here. If she’s running, where would she run?”
She frowned. “Not Port Eyeja. Whatever she saw there terrified her. She wouldn’t go back towards it.” She shook her head slowly. “She’d go the other way. Away from the port. Away from people.”
“Into the mountains?”
Polly’s arms tightened around herself. “I think so. But where? There’s nothing out there. Just snow and rock and?—”
She stopped, and he watched something shift in her expression.
“The rockslide,” she said.
“What rockslide?”
“The one that concealed the destroyed lab.” Her voice quickened. “Remember we tracked a ship to those coordinates. She thought there was something odd about it. She might even think there’s shelter there.”
