Page 130 of The Duke and the Disciple

“She said...” Rahn’s mouth tightened as he inhaled through his scrunched nose. He flicked his fingers. “We had an argument.”

Don’t kill him. Don’t kill him. Don’t kill him.“About...” Drazhan braced. “What?”

“She was upset. I... I wasn’t as supportive as she wanted me to be.” Rahn released the chair. “Does itmatter, when every minute she’s gone is a minute we lose? She could be anywhere by now.”

“Draz already sent for Lord Dereham,” Imryll said. “But there’s no reason we have to wait for his men to assemble.” She abandoned her robe on the bed and started for her bureau, but Drazhan reached for her arm, shaking his head with as much calm as he had left in him.

“Imryll. Please. For me,” he pleaded. “I need to know you’re safe. You and Aleks—and the baby.”

She squeezed her eyes closed in annoyance, but nodded. “How can I help from here then?”

“Wake Uli Castel, and let him know he and my men need to be ready within the half. Then find Lady Dereham and get her to rouse her best chambermaids. We don’t—can’tknow what Aes will need when we find her.” Drazhan’s head felt ready to implode. Imryll would know what to say to ease it, but that wasn’t what he needed. “We have to be ready for anything, love.”

Imryll slipped a dressing gown over her shoulders, swiftly kissed him, and whispered, “I don’t know what’s going on, but he knows her better than we do right now. Listen to him.”

She was gone before Drazhan could respond.

The scholar stood at a window, bent over the frame. He looked stiff and aged and lost, all of which reminded Drazhan that the man was too old to be lusting after Aesylt.

On my Ancestors, it will never, ever be this man.

Drazhan rubbed his temples. “Tell me more about this fight.”

“It wasn’t a fight, it was a difference of opinion.” Rahn straightened, his head falling back. “She was upset I didn’t speak on her behalf, but it wasn’t my place to position my voice above yours and Lord Dereham’s.”

Clipping his sword belt into place, Drazhan asked, “And if it had been your place, what would you have said?”

Rahn turned. His eyes were shot with pink and red. “You wait for your men, I’ll go ahead?—”

“No.” Drazhan checked his sword. Sharp enough. “We’ll go together. What,exactly,did she say that led you to believe something had happened?”

Rahn tilted his head back again. “It was... a feeling. After she left, the feeling didn’t go away. I talked myself into checking on her. She was gone. That’s all I know.”

“An accurate one, ostensibly. So tell me, what are yourfeelingstelling you now? Where is she? Back in the Cross, you think?”

Rahn lowered his eyes to the ground and shook his head. “I don’t know.” He glanced up in hopeless defeat. “If I did, it’s where I’d be now.”

Drazhan laced his boots, thinking ahead to the search. The snow and darkness would be significant impairments to progress. She could already be halfway to Witchwood Cross by the time they saddled and mounted, but if she was still on the road, those same perils would reach her too. “My wife says you know my sister better than all of us. Silence hurts her more than any confession you’ll make.”

“There’s...” Rahn’s voice cracked. He glanced away, straining. “If I thought anything I could say now would help us find her, I would hold nothing back. Marek... Marek is stilloutthere, and now, she’s... I wish to the gods I knew more. I wish I’d listened, that I’d heard what she wanted me to hear. She was angry and determined when I saw her last, and you and I both know Aesylt is capable of anything.”

Drazhan dipped toward the window and checked the sky. It was just past midnight. They still had a full night ahead. Rahn was right about one thing; every minute they spent talking was a minute she slipped farther away. “When Aesylt is safe, you’re going to be forthcoming about what’s gone on between you two, or you can be sure you willneversee her again in this life.”

The person standingbefore Valerian was the most exquisite woman he’d ever seen—and also a complete stranger.

She answered the door to her room at the inn with her hood pulled tight. After casting suspicious glances into the hall, she yanked him inside and bolted all three locks before throwing herself into his arms.

And she was crying.

Sobbing.

The last time he’d seen her shed even a single tear had been on the worst night of their lives.

“Hey, Aessy. Aessy, I’m here.” Valerian pulled back, holding tight to her shoulders as he choked on his own well of complicated emotions. Right away he could see she’d been through something she might not be willing or able to explain. She seemed older—no, not older, but wiser somehow. The kind of wisdom he attributed to the adults of his life, who had lived through the cycles of peace and war and were always ready for either. In her eyes were a hundred confessions she might never offer.

“You’re alive. You’re really, truly alive. V, I...” She stepped backward and sank onto a chair, burying her face between her legs. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“I had to satisfy my curiosity about why Aesylt Wynter is holed up in an inn under an assumed name, sending coded messages through a war zone.” Valerian dragged a chair in front of her and sat on it. She was still staring at the floor. “Aessy. Come on, it’s all right. I’m here now.”

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