Page 106 of Blood of the Stars

“How did Sylmar communicate with the army?” Aeliana asked.

“Messengers.” Lukai scanned the street, but he didn’t move forward. “But his last contact point was in Valorian. That’s why we went out of our way to check in. Iris and Holm said everything was on schedule.”

“Did their contact send a message on from there? To go ahead of us?”

He shrugged, every movement becoming more listless. “Even if it was intercepted, it was always in code.”

“Codes can be broken,” she said.

He sat on the front step and dug his palms into his eyes as if he couldn’t physically go on anymore. She debated putting an arm around him, but comforting others didn’t come naturally to her. It made the idea feel fabricated, forced by the bond between them, and she wasn’t sure what to do with that.

Holm and Kendalyhn stepped out from the house across the street. Kendalyhn reached out a hand, pulling Lukai to his feet and then wrapping him in a hug. A strange sense of heat rushed through Aeliana as Lukai leaned into the other woman, both of them shaking with silent sobs. It shouldn’t bother her, not when they had a shared loss after years of friendship.

But the feeling didn’t go away, and beneath it, something else simmered. A sense of wrongness. Like her bond had more influence over her emotions than it should be allowed. She turned her back to them, facing Holm, whose stricken face resembled a lost child’s.

“She knew we were coming, didn’t she?” Aeliana asked. “She knew I was coming.”

Holm shook his head, his mouth opening without any words coming out.

“She broke Sylmar’s code,” Aeliana continued, “and beat us here, crippling us in the easiest way she knew how.”

“You don’t know that.” Lukai’s words came out weak. There was no other explanation to offer.

“I’m endangering you all.” As Aeliana said the words, the truth of them washed over her like a wave of sorrow. It reminded her of her days under Arvid and Vera, when her energy and pain had come in undulating ripples.

No one argued, which spoke volumes to Aeliana. The four of them cut through the remains of an alley to meet Sylmar, Iris, Velden, and Cyrus on the next street over.

“We’ll stock up and head farther north,” Sylmar said, his gruff tone thicker than usual. “If we catch wind of the army, we can meet up with them on the trade route. Otherwise, we’ll make for the Pass.”

The word “otherwise” held too much heaviness. It meant the army would have all perished. It meant they’d be on their own, performing a stealth mission to retrieve Aeliana’s mother and blood instead of being one small part in a much larger plan.

“If Mayvus knew about the army,” Velden said slowly, “wouldn’t she watch both the trade route and the Pass?”

Silence grew as even Sylmar couldn’t argue with his point.

“How else could we reach the Myndren Mountains?” Aeliana asked.

Lukai shook his head. “We’d be better off returning to the coast and taking boats around the Western Horn.”

“We’d never make it before Solstice,” Iris pointed out.

“So despite being terribly dangerous, the Pass is our only option?” Cyrus asked. As they all waited for someone else to confirm their dire circumstances, a low rumble came from the north.

The others reached for weapons, making Aeliana realize she should probably ready her bow and arrow as well. But she’d seen how little good arrows did against Durriken’s hide.

“How certain are we that the dragon is gone?” Cyrus asked.

“About as certain as we are about making it through the Pass,” Velden said.

Iris shot him an irritated look.

Aeliana scanned the skies, the memory of Durriken’s massive scaly body so vivid she worried she wouldn’t be able to tell the past from her present reality.

“There.” Holm pointed to the east, where a dark shadow broke up the grey clouds.

“Change of plans,” Sylmar growled. “We’re no longer stopping for supplies.”

They all followed his lead, darting between buildings and heading farther south. When Sylmar veered left, Cyrus pulled up short.

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