Page 9 of Of Blood and Fire
She swooped around and flew in that direction. Thunder crackled overhead, and in the distance, lightning flashed. It was just our luck to be flying into a storm....
I tore off a good chunk of the Hutzelbrot and happily munched on it as my gaze skimmed the ground, looking for signs of unusual movement. There was nothing to be seen. As the eerie-looking Barrain Ghost Forest came into sight, we swept to the left and continued on. The rumbling of thunder gave way to fat drops of rain, then quickly became a deluge. The desire to just go home rose, but aside from the need to uncover the fate of Cate’s team, there was also a growing curiosity to find out who—what—they had been following. As with the seeming emptinessbelow us, I rather suspected there was a story behind the tracks we needed to uncover.
That emptiness continued on unabated except for the occasional drifts of cervine—large brown animals with thick shaggy hair and sharp, multi-pronged horns growing from the back of their skulls. Though they weren’t domesticated, the Mareritt nevertheless tended them, as they provided good meat for the long months of darkness their half of the continent faced every year.
It was only when we reached the tail end of the Barrain Ghost Forest that the tracks became evident. It was hard to miss them, in fact, given it was basically a trail of destruction a good twenty feet wide. It plunged out of the forest, over the Igna, and continued on, heading west initially then gradually curving around to the rockier landscape of the south.
Toward Arleeon. Toward the Blue Steel Mountains.
Toward, if they maintained their current course, the large expanse between the second and third watch stations.
To what point, though?
The Mareritt had tried—and failed—to cross those treacherous mountains multiple times over the centuries, so if these tracks did belong to the riders’ ground force, what made them believe they could achieve what centuries of Mareritt could not?
I didn’t know, but I had a bad feeling we were about to find out.
We flew on and, after a few more miles, saw black dots circling in the sky.
Carrion birds.
My stomach sank. Though I’d been well aware the lack of communication meant it was unlikely Cate and her team had survived, hope had nevertheless remained.
These birds suggested otherwise. They didn’t often circle in such numbers unless there was a big enough carcass—or carcasses—to feed them all.
I burn?Kaia asked.
I smiled.They’re following instinct and do not deserve death for that. But we can burn whatever it is they’re circling.
It was the least we could do if itwasCate, her team, and their coursers. And at least with the heaviness of the rain, the rising column of smoke shouldn’t provide too much of a warning to whoever—whatever—had attacked them.
The carrion scattered as we drew near, although they remained within sighting distance, no doubt eager to continue their feast once we were gone again. Kaia did a slow, banking circle, and I didn’t look down, instead checking the skies and the deeper distances barely visible through the silvery curtain of rain for any sign of watchers.
There was nothing.
I took a deep breath and finally looked down.
To discover a massacre.
CHAPTER
TWO
A massacrethat was almost an exact replica of what had been done to the men, women, and children on Eastmead. That time, their bodies had been hacked to pieces and placed around the skeletal remains of what had once been a beautiful old clock tower.
There was no clock tower here, just an odd-shaped standing stone, but the bodies—be they scout or courser—had been treated the same way.
Anger burned through me, and flames danced around my fingertips, turning the thick rain into steam for several minutes before I was able to extinguish the fire—if not the fury.
Magic herecame Kaia’s thought.Different but same.
Where?I replied sharply, but almost immediately spotted it.
It was fainter than the magic we’d discovered in the blue vein tunnel and held the same golden shimmer, but there were no fiery ribbons here. Instead, there seemed to be a series of ghostly forms that lost substance the closer we drew, until there was nothing left other than the dome of gold.
I blinked, suddenly realizing that I wasn’t connected to Kaia’s sight—I’d instinctively severed it when the fury had rolled through me. This wasmeseeing the magicwithouther input,and that meant my earlier guess had been right—magic no longer held any sway over me.
Share gifts, she said.Is good.
