Page 42

“That didn’t look like any guard or scout I’ve ever seen,” Iryana mumbled quietly.

“No,” Pyetar agreed.

She walked over to the tree it had been sniffing, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. When she looked back toward Pyetar, she saw him standing over a small cluster of Beast’s Poppy only a few steps away.

The sight of those flowers, the gossamer black petals and feathered, dark purple leaves, still made her nauseous.

They were a death sentence for anyone who consumed the drug made from them, albeit a slow one. That didn’t keep some from thinking they could avoid becoming addicted, that they could ride the highs and stop once it started killing them.

She was glad Pyetar had the 18th burning all the poppy fields they found. Some wondered if they attracted the dakii, but keeping people like Karvek from them was just as important. They would sell them to anyone and everyone, just to gain wealth and power.

It only took them a moment to burn the fresh-looking blooms, but the eerie sensation of seeing them lingered as they continued. They were both quiet for a while, contemplative.

“Do you think we’ll find anything else?” she asked.

“I don’t know. But I feel like we have to keep looking. There has to be a connection,” Pyetar sighed, walking slower than usual at Iryana’s side. “After seeing that, and with all the poppies appearing and the beasts changing.”

It was hard to disagree, but she didn’t want to draw correlations where there wasn’t enough proof. It could have been a coincidence, but it didn’t feel like one.

She simply said, “I’ve always just heard that whatever magic seeped into our world to create the dakii brought both.”

People didn’t talk about the origins as much as they had in the early days. Back then, there were as many theories appearing as there were beasts.

Some thought another nation had found a way to access magic and had cursed Istri for hoarding it. Or the dakii had existed for thousands of years, caged by the gods, but when they were lost, their control on those chains weakened until the beasts escaped. Perhaps the poppies were portals to another world, a darker one, letting the dakii through. Or the well magic their gods had left behind had become poisoned, creating the monsters.

In the end, no one knew, and nothing they did could get rid of them. They were here, what did it matter where they came from?

“What if wolves eat the poppies and it turns them into the dakii?” Pyetar proposed.

She’d heard that one before. “I feel like we’d have seen something though, some interim stage of transformation. Or wolves gathering around the fields. And they don’t look that similar to wolves.”

Pyetar frowned at her. “What do you think, then?”

She wished she understood the beasts, but no one did. She could see why people liked their theories, but she just didn’t see a reason to believe one way or another.

“They’re obviously related. Two horrible things entering Istri simultaneously, defies laws of reason.” It was more an observation than a theory, though. “One could cause the other, one could be a side effect of the other, or they could both be caused by something else we can’t even see. Something like that.”

Pyetar stepped in front of her, cutting her off. Iryana blinked and stared up at him. Those blue eyes were watching her, his eyelids heavy. He reached for her, one hand cupping the back of her head while the other trailed along her jaw. His hands were so big.

“Did you…” she stammered, focused on his hand, the feel of the leather that capped the fingers of his gloves against her cheek. “Like that answer?”

A half smile tilted his full lips. “No, I hated your answer.”

Iryana frowned, tilting her head farther back so she could properly look into his eyes.

“Far too reasonable.” His hand left her face to grab her long braid and pull it over her shoulder. “Extremely logical.”

“So ungrateful,” she rasped.

Her lips parted, and he was staring at her mouth. She watched his throat bob as he swallowed, the muscles in his neck tensing. His throat was at about the same height as her eyes.

She gripped the front of his coat and clung to him.

“It’s far too risky to kiss you here,” he said softly. “Too distracting.”

“Can’t have you getting distracted,” she chastised, although disappointment burned down her stomach. “You said I wouldn’t have to form a single forging, remember?”

He smiled playfully, but his eyes were still smoldering. He wrapped his hand around hers. “We’ll reach the spot I want to camp tonight soon.”