Two steps away from the spot I needed to stand, my heart stopped beating and my breath lodged in my throat. Tears pricked my eyes as a vision of being tied to a thick, round pole and chopped wood piled at my feet surfaced, where I pleaded with the Demons throwing lit straw on me to stop and listen to why I had killed Vagach.

I wanted to live. I wanted to be free. I wanted to be me.

A pair of boots filled my vision, and through the ringing in my ears, I heard a muffled version of Izgath’s voice. A moment later, his strong arm was thrown over my shoulders, and his chest vibrated against me. The motion broke my trance, and reality slammed back into me.

“We’re all fucking hungry, Dromak, let’s pick this up tomorrow. The smell of venison is calling my name.” Izgath’s laugh sounded forced.

Dromak sniffed the air like a hound. “I don’t smell anything here.”

“That’s because you spend too long with your nose buried in other places,” Izgath teased, squeezing my shoulder sharply. I barked a laugh along with him, realizing that he was, in fact, protecting me. Again.

“If you’re implying that I’m an ass-kisser, then you’re wrong,” Dromak grumbled, but the corners of his mouth twitched into a smile. Uncrossing his arms from his broad chest, he sighed. “Fine, we can go eat. I was just telling Vagach how hungry I was anyway.”

“If you ask nicely, I might even give you my leftovers,” Izgath teased as he gestured with his free hand to dismiss the waiting males. Uzadaan tucked the parchment and board underneath his arm and joined the three of us while they dispersed.

“Does asking nicely involve Dromak sticking his nose somewhere that will suppress the smell of venison?” I asked, sensing the direction of Izgath’s joke.

“It does indeed,” Izgath replied, wagging his eyebrows in Dromak’s direction.

He snorted and ran a hand over his hair, flinging sweat in all directions. “If you expect me to say something nice about you after all the shit you’ve given me to today, Izgath, it isn’t going to happen.”

Dropping his arm from my shoulder, he shrugged. “We’ll see.”

The four of us chuckled in unison, then fell into step and easy conversation as we returned to camp, where the scent of roasting meat assaulted my senses and pulled a growl from my belly.

Izgath turned his head ever so slightly to look at me, and I mouthed a silent, “Thank you.”

The pile of hair on the top of his scalp bobbed in time with his head. For the remainder of the evening, I studied Izgath, wondering how serious he was about his desire to protect me, to wait until I was ready for him, or if this was all a game to satiate his own desire.

After he intervened twice on my behalf, I was starting to believe he was genuine.

OceanofPDF.com

18

After a multitude of delays, Kiira finally sent word to Xannirin that she’d be free that evening and would meet us in his study at dusk. So there we waited for our cousin and co-conspirator.

Xannirin worked, while I wrestled on the ground with Grem and Zeec. The hounds were normally my stress relief, yet I couldn’t stop thinking about those damn drawings. They’d haunted my dreams ever since I’d seen them, and sometimes, I swore I saw those eyes among the crowds as I traversed the alleys of the war camp. I was going to get some fucking answers from Kiira when she arrived.

Dusk faded into night, and still, Kiira did not appear.

After successfully securing the rope away from the wild beasts, I sat up and found Xannirin gazing out toward the mountains, their peaks surrounded by a thousand winking stars. “Do you ever wonder how far away those other worlds are?” Xannirin mused.

“Too busy thinking about other things,” I grunted.

Xannirin snorted and faced me. I rose to my feet and planted my hands on his desk. “When was the last time you talked to the spirits?”

He traced a finger around a red crystal bowl in front of him. “Perhaps a year, maybe longer. Though now might be appropriate to take another trip.”

“Aye,” I muttered, mind going back to all the unrest in the Demon Realm. “Where the fuck is Kiira?”

He glanced over my shoulder and then returned his attention beyond. “I am more intrigued than ever with what is keeping her. She’s never been this busy before.”

As if we’d summoned her, the door slammed open, and she breezed into the study, not even bothering to knock. Grem and Zeec barked and bounded to her. She greeted both of them with pats on the head, but did not pay either of them any more attention, her wild, unfocused gaze on everything else.

“Kiira, what’s wrong?” Xannirin raced to her side.

Our cousin half-collapsed against him, and he directed her to an empty chair. I whistled at my dogs and they placed themselves obediently on either side of the entry.

“I–I–had, having a vision,” Kiira stammered, and both our attention was immediately secured to her.

“Still having? How did you make it here?” I pressed, bracing myself against the arm of a perpendicular chair while Xannirin knelt at her feet.

“It–it started while I was walking. I saw…” she paused, a shudder wracking her thin frame. It was then I noticed how much weight she’d lost since I last saw her, her high cheekbones cut deeper by the gauntness of her face. The veil she always wore was askew too, and with great care, I lifted it from her brow and set it aside.

She blinked rapidly, head tilting back.

Xannirin and I shared a look. Could Kiira’s absence have been due to new visions from the Giver? They tended to exhaust her for days afterward, and only after she’d had time to recover could she convey what she had seen.

“What did you see?” Xannirin asked gently, squeezing her knees in an attempt to bring her back.

Her head snapped forward, her burgundy eyes paling until they were nearly white. Her whole body jerked, sharp and unnatural, her empty gaze darting as though she saw something none of us could. When her mouth opened in a silent scream, the air in the room charged like the clouds before a violent lightning storm. Unease curled deep in my gut, coiling tighter with every twitch of her body.

“A female, with eyes of devious burgundy. She–she–we need her. She is essential,” Kiira gasped out.

“What?” I inched closer. “Essential to what, Kiira?”

Another shudder wracked her frame, and then she collapsed forward, Xannirin’s reflexes barely quick enough to catch her. I helped him maneuver her to a long lounger where she could lie flat.

While I sat in bewilderment, mind tumbling over what had occurred, Xannirin strode to the door and cracked it, speaking to the sentries stationed outside. “Water, with citrus, and a chip of ice wrapped in a cloth. Hurry.”

Smoothing back Kiira’s long, dark hair, I watched the shallow rise and fall of her chest. Her brow finally relaxed, and she released a long, heavy sigh, lips parting ever so slightly.

A moment later, Xannirin returned carrying what he had asked for. Snaking my arms beneath her, I lifted her so that he could tip some citrus water into her mouth. Then, he dabbed her sweaty brow with the wrapped ice chips.

“This is most unusual,” he whispered, never taking his eyes off of her.

“Agreed,” I murmured back. Kiira needed to rest, at least for a few moments, to regain her strength. Perhaps we’d have to meet about the new push to appease the more far flung parts of the Demon Realm another day.

“This female with burgundy eyes…what could she be essential to? The war?” Xannirin questioned, drawing my focus away from our cousin.

“That has been our sole focus for so long, I can’t think of anything beyond it,” I admitted. “But if that’s the case, will she serve or threaten the cause?”