Hotbloods 5: Traitors

He gave a soft laugh. “Here we go with the questions,” he teased. “Keep your head up, all right?”

We walked in companionable quiet, the peace broken only by the occasional snap of a twig underfoot, or the flutter of something moving in the branches overhead. Now and again, I’d see yellow eyes staring at us from the undergrowth, but I wasn’t scared. They belonged to small, harmless creatures, according to Ronad. Besides, there was nothing in these woods more frightening than what lay beyond them.

“I knew she’d start going after the big names,” I said, as we continued down a barely discernible path hidden among the lichen and moss that covered the forest floor in a spongy carpet.

“Huh?”

“Gianne. I knew she’d start going after some bigger targets. That general didn’t look like he had a clue what was going on,” I explained. “They probably drugged him or something, so he wouldn’t cause a scene.”

“Looks like Jareth might have built his tunnel just in time,” Ronad mused, although he sounded worried. As much as he resented Jareth, I knew he didn’t want any harm to come to Lorela.

“You think she’ll start gunning for the Idraxes?”

Ronad shrugged. “I don’t know what they put in the royal water, but the queens be crazy!”

I laughed. “I think it’s the crown that does it, not the water.”

Twenty minutes later, a scent trickled through the trees toward us. It was a burnt smell, like bonfires and smoldering ash. It was the smell of destruction. Shortly after that first whiff of trouble, the landscape began to change. Vast swathes of woodland had been sheared away, leaving nothing but the smoking remnants of once-luscious glades, splintered logs, and singed debris.

Picking our way across the shattered forest, we reached the shore of what had once been a beautiful lake. Gray ash floated down all around, settling in the water and across the devastation. The lake itself still glittered beneath the unyielding sunlight, but there was no beauty here anymore. It looked exactly as the cabbie had described it—a recently abandoned warzone.

At the far side of the lake, I could see the ruins of a huge building, half a glass dome protruding from the remains. From the way the broken boulders gleamed, I could tell the structure had been built from opaleine. Great chunks of the precious stone lay scattered around, sparkling amid the chaos.

“Is that the concert hall you mentioned?” I asked, pointing to the opposite side of the lake.

“Yeah, what’s left of it,” Ronad muttered.

All around the shoreline lay piles of rubble that had once been houses. Only one remained mostly intact, shining some light on what the neighboring structures had looked like before war broke out. It was a vast mansion made from a marble-like stone—not quite opaleine, but definitely not cheap. Given the location, these were probably vacation homes for the rich and famous of Vysanthe. By the looks of what was left, all of them had been bigger than anything the Idrax family had to offer.

I brushed a fragment of ash from my cloak, leaving a smudged streak across the forest-green fabric. With a shiver of horror, I realized it wasn’t just ash from the burning woodland or the bombarded buildings—this was the ash of the dead. It was the final flurry of the dead soldiers who’d fought overhead.

“It’s best to ignore it,” Ronad suggested, seeing my appalled face.

“Easier said than done when it’s raining dead people.” I shuddered. “How far is the cabin from here?”

Ronad pointed to the destroyed opaleine. “It’s in the woodland behind the concert hall.”

“I thought you said it was half an hour from where we were!”

He grinned. “It is, if you walk fast enough.”

“Fine, but can we keep to the trees until we get to the other side?” I pleaded, desperate to get away from the falling flakes of ash.

Relenting, he followed me back into the shelter of the forest, where we crept along the perimeter, keeping the lake to our right as we hurried on. I was ever-conscious of our time running out, and there was still a lot to be done, the hiss of that invisible sand-timer forcing me to pick up the pace.

However, as we neared the spot where the intact mansion sat, I grabbed Ronad by the shirt and yanked him back, pulling him into the shadows. A strange ship sat on what had once been the mansion’s rolling lawns. It wasn’t sleek or sophisticated, like most coldblood ships. Parts of it were rusting away, and several panels looked like they’d once belonged to other ships, hammered in mismatched patches. It was about the size of the Asterope, with two bulky, curved wings coming out the sides, reminding me of airplane turbines. Whatever kind of ship this was, it looked like it belonged in a junkyard, not a mansion’s backyard.

“We should try’n pick up as much of that shiny rock as possible. It’ll go fer a bucket-load at the darkstar market!” a voice called, as four figures emerged sporadically from the building, carrying scavenged furniture and technology.

The one who’d called out was leaning against the front of the rusty spaceship, his arms folded across his chest. He looked remarkably human, dressed in all black, with torn trousers, heavy boots, a bulky jacket made from a leathery material—one sleeve missing—and a bandana across his forehead. He had a black-and-white feather dangling from one ear, and a pair of snakebite piercings beneath his bottom lip, the studs apparently black, too. The only colorful thing on him was a glowing blue bracelet.

I guessed he was the leader, and he definitely wasn’t Vysanthean. The rest of the group didn’t seem to be, either. I watched them come and go. There was a lycan and a Carokian among them, the latter making me feel a little queasy, with its bulging red eyes bugging out of its head and its amphibian mouth flopping open, but I had no clue which species the others belonged to.

There were two unknowns. One was a petite individual with colorful red-and-yellow skin that seemed almost scaly. Its head looked oddly goldfish-like, with vivid aquamarine eyes and a plump pair of bright orange lips above a nonexistent chin.

The second moved like a shadow, prowling across the gardens, his skin covered in a sleek layer of jet-black fur that had abstract designs shaven in, the pattern moving across his body. I could tell he was male because his upper half was bare, and formed like a human’s, with rippling pecs and abs I could play a tune on. He wore black cargo pants that hung low on his hips, and his feet were bare, shaped like elongated paws. His face, however, was cat-like, his ears flicking backward and forward, as if listening for distant sounds of warning. I hoped he couldn’t hear us hiding in the trees. Just like the leader, he wore a black-and-white feather in his ear, the fibers resting against the side of his panther-like face.

“What are they?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

Ronad looked worried. “Scavengers.”

I rolled my eyes. “What species are they? I only know lycans and Carokians.”

“Carokians freak me out.” He shuddered, pulling a face. “The red-and-yellow one is a Darian—stay away from their mouths, at all costs. They might look sweet, but they have rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth inside their mouths. They can pull out chunks of flesh in seconds.”

“Aren’t they the ones with the delicious blood?” I asked.

Ronad nodded. “That’s why it’s weird to see one here.”

“What about him?” I gestured at the cat-like scavenger.

“He’s a Rexombra. They’re an ancient species, almost as old as the Draconians. They’re mostly mercenaries, with a sideline in assassinations. They’re powerful and smart, and the stealthiest bastards you’re ever likely to come across. You’ll never hear one sneak up on you—it’s why nobody has ever been able to prove what they do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, nobody has ever caught them in the act.”