Page 67 of Feathers and Thorns

She smiled through the blood in her teeth. “You’re too late.” She started coughing, choking on her own blood. She spat toward his feet to clear her throat.

“Get her out of my sight—now!” Adriel’s voice was filled with malice.

Luscinia laughed wildly as she was taken away. Before she was fully out of sight, though, she yelled back one final time.

“You will soon know what our father felt—the betrayal of a son.”

“Soren!” Enara’s worried voice carried into the shop from the square. “Soren, where are you?” Her throat bobbed as she choked down a sob. Her mind was racing at all the terrible things that could have befallen her friend in her short absence.

She was covered in black from head to toe, and it took two vials of healing water from her pack to stop the spread of the new creature’s venom.

“We should start doing building checks on the ones that are still standing,” Ikei said.

“Yes, maybe she had to run for safety,” his brother finished.

She shook their head, not bothering to look in their direction as she scanned the blood-soaked ground for any signs of Soren. “She wouldn’t run from a fight.”

“You got that right,” Soren said, bursting out of the door of a tailor shop.

Relief washed over Enara like the cool water of the Boreal River, healing her slowly breaking heart. Before she knew it, she was running and lifting Soren into the air, nearly squeezing the life out of her. Tears pricked at her vision, and she blinked them back, giving her best friend a once-over. Her eyes widened when she registered just how much blood covered her body. She looked like a scene out of a horror play they had once seen back in Vreburn.

“What happened?” she asked, rounding on Rook. “And where the fuck were you?” She jabbed his chest with her index finger, her disdain for him circling her like a dark cloud.

Soren stepped between them, gently removing her friend’s finger from his chest. She could feel the heat of his body seep into her back as she tried to stop Enara’s rampage. She knew that look, and if the sparring dummies were any indication of what was to happen next, Rook didn’t stand a chance, healing powers or not.

“The blood’s not mine,” she said. “Well, most of it, anyway. He saved me.”

“He ditched us as soon as the attack began! How can we even begin to trust him?” Enara was practically foaming at the mouth.

Soren debated wiping the spittle from her lip but thought better of it. When she was angry, she was like a rabid dog, and she did, in fact, bite.

“You don’t need to trust him,” Soren said simply, catching Enara’s hazel eyes with her own. “You just need to trust me.”

Enara stared at her for a long moment, and an unspoken conversation seemed to pass between them before she flicked her eyes back to Rook.

“Fine. But I’ll be watching you.” If glares could kill, Rook would be nothing but a pile of ash.

Soren turned to notice him fighting the urge to smile. Luckily, Enara had not seen it, already walking in the direction of the mausoleum.

Soren’s brows pinched together, and she shoved his shoulder. “You are not helping,” she whispered angrily.

“Would it be any consolation if I said I liked her?” he asked.

“No,” Soren said but suppressed a smile of her own.

* * *

They trudged after Enara, jumping and sidestepping over and around chunks of stone and other fallen debris on their way back to the agreed meeting point. The cemetery gate, along with the first couple rows of tombstones, had been blown to bits. Fortunately, the caskets remained mercifully underground.

The group deflated when they reached the doorway, only to find it as devoid of life as the rest of the burial grounds.

“Ugh!” Enara yelled, clenching her fists in frustration. She had been hoping Baz and Jai would have found their way back by now. And where were Callan, Saoirse, and Adaryn?

Before anyone else could offer a suggestion, she stormed past Soren, the twins, and Rook, taking special care to knock him in the shoulder on her way out of the cemetery.

“Where are you going?” Soren called, running after her.

“To find them.”

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