Page 104 of A Dawn Of Blood

He turns his focus back onto me. “I’m saying I have a solution for you, Anna. We can go and safely leave him here, if that’s what you want.”

Chapter 73

There is no way to use magic to get to Dryvein without setting off a bunch of alarms we don’t want to set off. So it’s the old-fashioned way that we travel — by train.

The ride is over five hours long, taking us from lush continental Germany to the ancient sea-side city of Dryvein. I love trains, and if this was happening at any other time, I’d probably have my nose glued to the window throughout the entire journey. As it happens, I can do nothing but stop myself from squirming in my seat next to Nuala and across from Raven and Dryden.

“Hey,” Nuala warns when my squirming lands her another jab in the ribs.

“Sorry about that.”

“Will you stop being so nervous?” she complains. “We haven’t even arrived. And besides, it’s bad for your health.”

“Thanks, Nuala,” I say sweetly, making a point of dragging my eyes down her robes. “I’m happy to see being Baldur’s priestess isn’t interfering with your role of nagging mom.”

She quirks an annoyed eyebrow at me, Dryden blows out a laugh, and Raven just smiles and returns to staring out the window with an absent expression on her face.

I turn to the window as well, the current view being one of rolling hills turning rockier the closer we get to Dryvein. Ever since she told me she broke up with him for refusing to talk to her after the incident with Cain, I’ve had Raven and Alaric on my mind, although that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“It surprises me,” my wolf starts, “that they think it’s the mission you’re nervous about.”

I blow a laugh through my nose. “Well,” I reply, “I’m nervous about that as well.”

She stays silent for a moment. “You know, ignoring the thing that’s really troubling you won’t make it go away.”

My mind flashes with images of his face twisting in rage as the realization hits him — that we drugged him so we could transfer the collar magic from me to Lorcan, Jaeger and de Groot. They almost make me go back to obsessing over how everyone is doing, howheis doing. But I mercilessly force them out.

“You’re all so full of surprisingly helpful advice today,” I say to my wolf.

She doesn’t reply. Realizing I won’t be made to talk, she just retreats back into the shadows.

Get inside the cathedral, I start chanting as soon as she does. Find the shadow torch. Get a piece of the shadow. Return to the Academy. Forge the sword.

I’m on my fifth repetition when the train starts pulling into the Main Station. The four of us exchange a single determined look before we get up, readjust our robes and climb out of the train with the rest of the passengers.

The crowd — many of whom are actual priests and worshippers coming into the city for Baldur’s Day — is suffocating, so we don’t stop until we’re out of the station building and on one of the largest squares in the city.

It’s here that I make us all slow to a stop, taking in the view all around me.

The city is just as striking as the first and only time I got to visit. One of the few remaining First Cities — places foundbyOriginals,forOriginals, in the centuries when humans weren’t just in the dark about the rest of the bloodlines, but… in the dark in general.

It’s more than enough to take your breath away — the mossy mountain rising high into the misty sky, the translucent white marble gleaming through the mist, the enormity of it all making the rivers of people seem as if they were nothing more than ants. Right behind me, there’s the largest railway station this side of the world, to my left and right, there are towers suspended above the streets, and across the square on which I’m currently standing, there’s an enormous set of stairs leading to another square right in front of the cathedral.

The sight is inspiring as hell, but the moment my eyes get drawnbehindthe cathedral and up, to the grand palace perched on the very top of the hill… all the awe gets switched out for sudden, acute sadness.

It’s strange to say the least — to know that, so many years ago, I stood here admiring this palace without knowing it would one day be my mate’s home. But more than anything else, it’s making it hard for me to keep shoving all my useless desperation about him aside.

“Anna?” Nuala’s voice snaps me out of it.

Clearing my throat, I tear my eyes away from the palace. “I guess it was to be expected,” I say as I shift my focus backonto the crowd gathered on the cathedral square, “but this little holiday of his seems to be very well attended.”

“And the sentiments all seem to be… praise-worthy,” Dryden notes as he points at the people celebrating the burning of a statue — the one of Brothers Grimm.

Bile rises up my throat when I remember that, when I first got to visit, Dryvein was one of the most progressive places you could find in the entire wide world.

That all slips my mind as soon as I spot it — the shadow torch that was supposed to beinsidethe cathedral.

“Isn’t that the torch?” I hear Raven ask with tension in her voice.

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