Page 4 of Of Beasts & Vengeance

Better that, I suppose, than growing even closer before this inescapable ending.

I pick up my pace, treading carefully around the edge of the lake. It feels like several lifetimes have passed since I plunged into the icy water, since it invaded my lungs and my body and nearly pulled me down to its depths for eternity.

I fervently hope this expedition does not end the same way. There is no Khijhana to rescue me this time, no Einar to keep me warm, and I can't afford to die before I have finished what I came here to do.

Left with the choice to follow me into the caves or freeze to death out here, Damian follows as I knew he would. Of course, he’s going to die anyway. We both are, but he doesn’t know that.

I hate that I know him well enough to predict his reactions. I hate that I can carefully calculate his death without the barest hint of remorse.

Most of all, I hate that I have had to abandon and betray every person or being who has ever shown me a shred of kindness.

Chapter Three

Einar

The sound of someone in agony rips me from a deep sleep. My eyes open and my chest tightens as I think of who it must be.

How many nights have I awoken to the sounds of their torment? And how many more nights will my people suffer and die before I find a cure?

I swing my feet over the side of the bed and run a hand over my face as the sound grows louder. I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong -- or missing.

Glancing over my shoulder, I realize that Zaina is no longer lying next to me, though the small outline of her body is still imprinted in the mattress.

Maybe that’s what feels off.

My eyes travel to the armchair, and I notice Khijhana’s absence as well.

Has she already gone to investigate?

Throwing on my robe and tying the belt around my waist, I groggily make my way to the door before I realize the sound is coming from the passageway instead. My blood rushes a little faster in my veins, my whole body instantly alert.

Grabbing a candle to light the way, I open the hidden door in the wall. Once I’m in the passageway, the cacophony grows louder with each step toward Zaina’s door.

I shove open the panel to her room just as Khijhana takes a swipe at the frame. Her metallic claws shine like daggers in the candlelight, and only my reflexive jump backward keeps me from being impaled.

There is a booming coming from Zaina’s door, but the tortured sound has stopped. It was coming from the chalyx. Khijhana stares up at me with something close to panic in her turquoise eyes.

“What is it, Khijha?” I call her by her nickname in an attempt to calm her, but it doesn’t work.

She scarcely allows me to touch her before barreling past me to the passageway. I don’t follow her yet. Instead, I head to the door to Zaina’s bedroom to stop the guards’ frantic knocking, trying not to focus too hard on what’s around me yet.

Because her room is ravaged. Nearly all of the wood by the doors and windows are destroyed. The curtains and bedclothes are ripped clean apart from what looks like Khijhana’s claws.

But where is Zaina?

“Is everything all right, My Lord? We thought someone was hurt,” Gorm asks, his yellow eyes glowing in the darkness, while he and Sten look around the recently destroyed room.

Was she hurt? Taken?

I open my mouth to tell them I’m not sure when the sight of something crimson on the floor stills my tongue. Not blood, but it may be something far worse.

Petals.

Three pointed, blood-red flower petals are strewn carelessly on the floor, petals just like the one on the rose I showed her less than twenty hours ago. Like the ones that hold the source of my castle’s downfall -- and its only hope of salvation.

My hand instinctively goes to the chain that hasn’t left my neck in seventeen years, already knowing what I will find, the reason I have felt like something was missing from the moment I awoke.

It’s gone.

---