Still, the big guy hesitates.
“That’s an order, Kaithar. Come here.”
Slowly, he walks forward. I hold up my hand. “Drink.”
Gingerly, Kaithar takes my hand and sucks from my bleeding cut, which is already starting to close. It’s something, at least.
“This blood healed Finley’s brother, amongst… other things.” And it almost broke the magical seal in her body. “If there’s anything that can counter the lycan scourge, it’ll be this.”
Kaithar looks up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. There’s loyalty and affection in his dark gaze. A terrible feeling of dread courses through me. If anything were to happen to this man…
I’d never forgive myself.
“We have three days to figure out a cure,” I say quietly. “I’ll mobilize all my resources to help you. Hopefully, this will buy us some time.”
“Thanks,” Kaithar grunts. Then his face contorts into a grimace of pain. He swears viciously in Vikurian, clenching his jaw and grabbling his arm where the lycan bit him. “That fucking burns.”
He drops to his knees. I drop to haunches with him, peeling off his armor with my inhuman strength, tearing away his leather under-sleeve to reveal vicious tooth-wounds in his forearm.
They’re sizzling. As if someone’s poured gunpowder in there and set it alight. Almost instantaneously, the wounds start to heal.
“Looks like that worked a little,” Kaithar grunts.
“Somewhat.” But I’m still unsatisfied. The taint of the lycan’s bite lingers in Kaithar’s bloodstream, and we don’t know how to counter it.
Silently, I curse my father for his tyrannical suppression of magical knowledge. At times like this, it’s rendered me helpless.
I clap Kaithar on the shoulder. “I’ll do everything in my power to prevent you from developing the madness. Everything. Go to Ciel. Get yourself looked at. Then take your rest and put your subordinates in charge of the castle defenses. I’m going to go to the capital.”
“The capital? You sure about this?”
I sigh. “My old friend. You were right. I can’t just hole up in Tyron and hope that the empire will sort itself out.”
My father’s getting old, and the power vacuum he leaves behind when he dies is going to create chaos.
I’ve been away from the capital for too long. Although my spies occasionally send word about various political events that happen in Lukiria, I haven’t heard from them for some time.
I’d assumed it was because of the winter.
Turns out I’d gotten complacent. It’s no coincidence that Tyron Castle is under attack once again.
And for the first time…
The tentacles of war and corruption have almost reached something that’s become precious to me.
“Where’s Finley?” I demand, suddenly overcome with the need to see her. My thirst burns more powerfully than ever, and I wonder if I’d even be able to control myself if I caught her scent now.
Surely, she’ll let me have her.
“She went up to the boys’ quarters,” Kaithar tells me. “Talked some sense into them, apparently. They’re chomping at the bit to go out there and fight, but they don’t seem to understand whose side they’re on. Then Kinnivar came to escort her to the main hall for dinner.”
“Kinnivar?” My voice is sharp. “Who told him to go and retrieve her.”
Kaithar frowns. “I thought you did.”
“I left her safe in the main courtyard and went straight to the battlefield,” I snap, unease coursing through me. “She knows her way around. Everything within the walls is safe, and she has the run of the castle. Nobody should be escorting her.”
What the bloody hell does Kinnivar think he’s doing? Taking charge of my betrothed?
The captain isn’t stupid. Why would he overstep like this?
No excuse is going to save him. I’ll flay him alive.
“Kaithar, go rest. I’m going to find Finley.”
I close my eyes and try to find a tendril of her bloodscent, but the stench of corruption from the undead is overpowering.
I can’t detect her at all.
It’s strange. Her scent has been in my consciousness ever since I first encountered her. Arousing as it was, it also had a comforting effect on me.
Now it’s gone, and I’m unsettled.
I’m about to be furious.
And thirst burns the back of my throat, dragging me one step closer to hell.
Kaithar grabs my upper arm, squeezing me in his powerful grip as if to steady me. “Corvan,” he says, his brow furrowed in concern. He’s the one that’s suffered a lycan bite, and he’s concerned about me? “Are you all right? You look like hell.”
In truth, I feel hellish. Fighting against a relentless onslaught of inhumanly strong undead monsters has left me feeling drained.
Seeing faces I thought I’d long since buried has shattered me.
I make a silent vow. Whoever is behind this desecration is going to die.
Anger overrides my weariness. “I’m fine,” I growl.
“I don’t know what the hell Kinnivar’s thinking. But it’s possible he’s misinterpreted something.”
I wish it were so, but experience tells me otherwise.
I’ve beheaded one too many a traitor in the past.
There’s a chasm forming in my chest, filled with fury and dread.
Something’s wrong.
“Kaithar, go and see Ciel at once. Tell him exactly what’s happened. I’m going.”
In a flash, I’m gone, moving faster than the wind itself, leaving my commander standing in the courtyard.
I can’t spare even a moment longer.
If something has happened to her.
If they’ve done something to her…
I can’t even imagine.
What I’d be capable of.
42
FINLEY
For what feels like an eternity, they force me to walk. The air becomes colder, smelling of damp, musty decay. The light down here is dark and gloomy.
I want to turn around and bolt, but there’s a wall of bodies behind me, and I wouldn’t have a chance against them.
It would just give them another excuse to hurt me.
So I keep going, because that’s all I can do.
Corvan will come for me. He will.
We reach a cellar-like chamber where the air is laced with the faint smell of sewers. Nausea roils around in my stomach. I force myself to go still… to fight it. I can’t vomit here, not with my mouth stuffed full of rags.
Kinnivar strides across to a metal door and yanks it open. The hinges squeal in protest. One of the guards prods me in the back. “Go.”
I follow Kinnivar as he enters the door. It leads to a flight of stairs. “Up.”
We start to climb. We walk until my legs are burning; until my arms—so tightly bound and wrenched back until they feel like they’re going to pop out of their sockets—go numb.
At last, Kinnivar stops. He opens a door. Cold air streams down from above.
The stairs have led us to the outside. I can only guess that we’ve traversed a tunnel of some sort.
They’re taking me away from the castle.
Corvan, where are you?
I have never longed to see him more than I do now.
Because I know he would tear them apart.