Page 141 of A Warrior's Fate

Biting and familiar. Snaking down into the deepest, most buried parts of Isla’s subconscious.

Despite the reservations, the innate fear lapping at her paws, they followed the smell, Kai staying a few protective steps ahead.

They came upon the narrow mouth of a cave, and Isla couldn’t even register what Kai had tried to say through their link. All her senses were so overpowered, that she couldn’t even think straight.

With every bone in her body, she knew, she felt what was coming when they broke the dark threshold of the cavern.

And yet, she was still stunned, still nearly incapacitated by terror when she found herself staring into the bright red eyes of a bak.

Goddess…

The beast was dead—but even its lifeless stare was enough to immobilize Isla where she stood. Enough to fill her mind with darkness and demons and memories of a life just before death. Her stomach hollowed out, and her chest felt heavy like the bak had been upon her again, ready to eat her alive. She thought she’d only ever have to encounter another in her nightmares.

Maybe this was one.

The creature was sprawled in a pool of its own dark blood, the ebony liquid still leaking from the deep wound at its neck. The tearing had been so vicious, so deep, that its large head was nearly clean off its body.

In her pause, Kai had since approached it, his paws becoming drenched in the sticky black tar. He snarled as he circled it as if it would awaken and endanger her, his home, his people.

But it was dead. Very, very dead.

Isla forced herself to focus, to get words through their link. “How—how did it get here?”

A stupid question. Kai was likely as clueless as she was.

The bak were supposed to be contained. Behind the Wall, barricaded by thick stone and protective enchantments. By wards and blood runes. By magic.

But—

“Could it have slipped through the Gate? If the wards are failing…” she offered. “Maybe during a guard change?”

“And then walked the lengths of that pack to our borders, through two of our regional checkpoints before ending up here in the mountains? For them to even think that highly—to wait for guards to leave, to even break open the Gate…it’s not possible.”

“Maybe there’s a break in the Wall. It’s centuries-old, and with everything acting up, it no longer has that constant reinforcement or deterrent.”

As they shared the thoughts, Isla realized this was all exactly as Kai had feared. He’d wanted to put resources into looking at the Wall, but he’d gotten pushback.

Because no one knew the truth.

Not one member of his council, besides Ezekiel, knew of what had occurred during the Hunt. The bak’s odd behavior was a continent-wide secret, all because of Imperial Alpha Cassius and his need to keep this all buried and forgotten, hoping it would be lost to time.

Like all the hierarchy’s secrets.

Like the Ares Pass.

The thought rocked through her like a shot of lightning.

The pass—a direct connection between Deimos and Phobos. Or rather, Deimos and the Wilds.

Isla tried to remember the rest of Lukas’s words from a time that felt like a millennium ago now. From a time before he’d tried to murder her.

This pass goes into Mavec…a straight shot into the royal city…

“Where’s the Wall in relation to here?” she asked Kai who’d since gone on to explore the perimeter of the cave.

Her voice, edged with eagerness, likely would’ve concerned him if he wasn’t so focused. His movements were keen and sharp. She expected nothing less, his demeanor bordering militant. “East,” was all he answered.

Before she headed back out into the woods, Isla braced herself and dared to encroach on the creature. She lowered her snout, running it over its dry, gray, sparse-haired covered skin, tearing over near-impenetrable muscle. Its pungent odor flooded her senses, and the fatal wound, she realized, had been made with a blade.

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