“You saw him?” Halvor’s voice was almost as quiet as hers.
Father and Sachiel shared a glance heavy with concern before Sachiel turned back to Inara. “Was it when he took your power? Did you see anything else?”
“I … ah … I’m not sure. I only remember seeing him with the old Paladin.”
She was lying again. What was my sister hiding?
“If this is true, and the jakla did know a Paladin, who we must assume was part of the Infinitium sect, this is cause for even greater concern.” Sachiel’s mouth turned down at the corners.
“Why?” Mother asked, her arm still firmly wrapped around Inara, who had gone back to staring at the ground.
“As Adelric said, Infinitium means ‘unlimited power’—which is partially because they believe Paladin should rule over those with less or no power. But also because they are willing to do whatever it takes to gain as much power as possible. Including performing the type of horrible rituals your uncle did to this poor girl.” Sachiel paused and then barreled on. “There are rumors of other things they believe themselves capable of doing if they amass enough power—things even more terrible than what he’s already done.”
I shuddered at the thought of Barloc somehow doing things that were worse than ripping someone’s power out.
“Do you think he might go back to the library?” Raidyn asked Halvor, though his concerned gaze was on me. “Now that his plan to get into Visimperum failed?”
“Maybe? I don’t know where else he would go. I don’t think he’s ever traveled … before coming here.”
“Then we must try to beat him there,” Raidyn declared.
Loukas, sitting on a chair closer to the fire, turned to Raidyn, dismay on his handsome face. “You want us to go farther into Vamala? When you know what they did to your pa—the last time Paladin were here?”
Raidyn winced at Loukas’s reminder about what had happened to his parents—two other Paladin who had never returned home before my grandmother shut the gateway at the end of the war, leaving many Paladin trapped in Vamala, including my father. But he didn’t back down. Loukas’s warning about Raidyn’s intentions from that day by the luxem magnam rose once more—when he claimed to be worried that Raidyn was using me as a way to get to Vamala to see if his parents were still alive—writhing like a snake in my belly.
“I think Raidyn is right,” Sachiel agreed.
“To what end?” Loukas shot back.
“To stop the jakla!” the female general cried out. “So we can go home!”
Silence followed Sachiel’s pronouncement. My parents shared a glance. I forced myself to look at them, not Raidyn. Why had he suggested such a thing? If it had been anyone else … then the hard knot of distrust that had finally loosened last night wouldn’t have resurfaced.
But it was back, and bigger than ever, crushing my hope that perhaps he truly did care for me as more than a means to an end. Loukas’s theory that Raidyn hoped his parents had somehow survived and lived on, hidden in Vamala all these years, twisted my stomach as I listened to them argue.
“If he has books that taught him to perform the ritual—perhaps we can find a way to undo it?” Inara spoke again, her voice barely above a whisper.
There was an achingly long pause before Sharmaine gently said, “I wish that were possible. I truly do.” Her eyes were full of regret but Inara didn’t look up to see it, crumpling deeper into my mother’s embrace instead. “But there is no way to undo what he’s done. Plus, we still don’t know for sure that is where he’ll go. He may return here and attempt to get through the gateway again. He still thinks Inara opened it on her own, using only her power—which he now possesses. He never learned that Zuhra is an enhancer and that it was only their combined power that opened it, did he?”
“No, he doesn’t know.” Halvor also watched Inara, but she’d squeezed her eyes shut, so she didn’t see. Her hands were clutched together in her lap, but they still shook.
“So, he thinks himself capable of opening the gateway with the power he stole. He claimed to be going to Visimperum to find others who felt the same way he did—he must have been referring to other members of the Infinitium sect. Perhaps even family, if the Paladin he knew was his grandfather as he claimed. We have to assume there’s a high likelihood that he will return here.”
I expected Sachiel to argue with Sharmaine, but instead, she nodded.
“You make a valid point. So perhaps it would be best if we split up—half staying here to defend the citadel and half traveling to this library in case he does return there.”
“Splitting up is a risky move,” my father said.
“So is leaving the gateway unmonitored,” she countered.
My father finally stood, crossing to the couch where Mother and Inara sat, and placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Let’s take the afternoon to think about it, and we can decide later before we start night watches again. After the burial.”
Sachiel looked as though she were about to say more, but at the reminder that Adelric still had to bury his father, though her lips pursed, she remained mercifully silent.
“I believe Sami was preparing food for you all—it should be ready by now,” my mother said. “I’m sure you’re all famished after such a long night.” She pulled Inara to her feet and guided her toward the door, Father right behind them.
The rest of the room cleared out, except for Loukas and Raidyn. I still stood by the window, the sunshine streaming through the clear glass pane warm on my back.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Raidyn looked over at his friend.
“You know as well as I do that it would be better if I go find food for myself later. Last night was bad enough.”
“That’s not true, Louk. If anyone seemed tense, it was because of what happened yesterday.”
He glanced to me, his unique green-fire eyes burning. I was suddenly acutely uncomfortable, as if I were eavesdropping on a conversation I wasn’t meant to hear. A part of me had hoped to have a minute alone with Raidyn, but instead, I glanced away from both of them, then followed the rest of the group to the dining hall that finally had a use with all of the extra bodies staying in the citadel that needed food—something I could still barely wrap my mind around.
“Zuhra, wait,” Raidyn spoke up, but I only paused for a moment before forcing my feet to continue to carry me toward the door.
“I’ll talk to you later,” I called over my shoulder. “I think you two need a minute by yourselves.”
I didn’t look back as I hurried out into the hallway, but I heard Raidyn say, “Did you do something to her?” and Loukas respond, “Of course not.”
Last night, I’d been convinced Loukas had been wrong about Raidyn—his accusation that Raidyn was only interested in using me to get to Vamala in hopes that his parents survived and that he could find them. I didn’t know much about friendship and knew even less about the relationships between a man and a woman … but I’d thought surely no one would spend hours comforting and soothing a person, at the loss of their own chance for sleep, if they were merely using that person. Would they?
After he suggested we travel to the library in Mercarum to try to find Barloc, my doubts had returned, however.
I was no longer hungry, and I didn’t want to go sit beside Inara with her lie still between us, so I headed back outside, rather than going to the dining hall. I didn’t really have a destination in mind, but found myself wandering toward the stables, where the gryphons were still in their stalls. The building sagged against the earth, squatting like an aged crone, stronger than it looked, having weathered many storms, just as I’d assured Sharmaine.
The door groaned, shuddering open beneath my hand when I yanked on it.
Inside, the stables were a mix of heavy, menacing shadows skulking between dazzling puddles of sunlight from the skylights. The door shut behind me with a resounding thud, encasing me in darkness. I stepped forward into the nearest square of sunshine and glanced around.
/>
Silence.
No rustling, no huffing or clicking, or any noise to indicate the gryphons were awake—or even alive.
It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that it might have been dangerous to come out here alone. Barloc couldn’t have snuck back in somehow and killed all of them during the night—could he? What if he’d hidden himself there—waiting to attack the next unsuspecting person who walked in?
“Good morning!” I called out brightly, forcing myself to act like nothing was wrong. Surely, if the gryphons still lived, they would react to me.
But there was no response.
Nothing but oppressive, chilling quiet.
My heart clawed up into my throat, gagging me with terror. Did I try to sneak back out, now that I’d just announced my presence? Or did I turn and run?
I was too frightened to do more than slowly slink backward, praying I made it to the door and escaped in time. To at least scream and alert the Paladin on patrol that something was wrong. I thought of Naiki, Raidyn’s beautiful gryphon, and Taavi, my father’s—their bright, intelligent eyes, snuffed out forever—and had to blink back futile tears.
Before I could stretch out for the handle, the door groaned once more, and daylight flooded around me, illuminating me like a target.
I spun to face the dark silhouette of a man, his face hidden by shadow, blinding sunlight haloing his head and body.
“No!” I cried, stumbling back to escape—but I was too late. He sprang forward and grabbed my arm.
SEVEN
ZUHRA
“Zuhra? What’s wrong?”
I fought to break free, until the sound of his voice penetrated the clamor of fear in my head—and realized it was Raidyn. I sagged with relief before catapulting forward into his arms; but rather than letting myself sink into his embrace, I grabbed his shoulders and pushed him backward, a sob breaking free as I shouted, “We have to go—now! He’s here! They’re gone—I’m so sorry, they’re all gone.”
“What?” Raidyn shoved me behind him, spinning to face the stables, his veins flaring with fire. A small orb of it almost immediately hovered above his hand as he stalked forward.
“No! Barloc is here somewhere.” I grabbed his arm and yanked Raidyn back. “He killed them! He killed all of them!”
He glanced past my shoulder, realization dawning on his face. His eyes flared, a blaze of even brighter light pulsing through his veins. “Naiki,” he uttered. And then he pulled free of my grip and charged into the depths of the stable.
“No, Raidyn!”
He let out a long, low whistle, a sound that mimicked a gryphon’s, but that was so full of mourning it made my eyes fill with tears again.
Until there was a responding sound from within the stable, echoed all down the row of stalls.
Raidyn froze, then let his hand lower, the orb of flame winking out. The light in his veins dimmed. I stared in shock as first Naiki, then the other gryphons, all pushed their heads over the stalls, a cacophony of whistles and low hoots filling the previously silent stable.
“But … I don’t…”
“Zuhra”—Raidyn slowly turned to me—“why did you think they were all dead?”
He should have been angry. He should have been yelling at me for scaring him like that. I could feel the anger simmering beneath the surface of the cool, collected tone of his voice. But he strangled it into submission and simply waited, while I gaped in disbelief.
“I … I went in to check on them and I didn’t hear anything. I got scared and called out, but there was still nothing. They didn’t even move. I—I guess I assumed…” It sounded so stupid now, but had felt so real, so certain before.
“They’re trained to be completely silent when they’re in unfamiliar places and it’s not their Rider’s voice or scent they recognize coming in,” Raidyn explained, rubbing a still-shaky hand over his face and then pushing his hair back off his forehead, leaving it in disarray.
A flush crept up my neck and my stomach cramped. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“You didn’t know.” Though his words were forgiving, he turned and walked away, toward Naiki’s stall, away from me.
I stood in the doorway, watching as he reached up to his gryphon and stroked her feathered face, then leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers, his eyes squeezing shut. Scalding shame pulsed through my body. She was the only family he had left, and for a terrible moment, I’d made him believe she, too, was gone.
Mortified, I turned on my heel to rush to my room.
“Zuhra, don’t go.”
Despite myself, I paused.
“I came to talk to you.”
“You did?” I slowly turned back to find him striding toward me.
He nodded, his eyes roaming over my face. “When I left last night, you were asleep. Were you able to stay asleep?”
My face grew hot again, but for a different reason this time. “Yes. Until the sunrise, at least.” I shifted on my feet, looking away from his blue-fire gaze, staring instead at his chest, to the muscles that shifted beneath the light material of his shirt. “I don’t know how you knew … or why you were willing to … but I really can’t thank you enough for doing that for me.” It was such a meager excuse for the gratitude I owed him after what he’d done for me, but I had nothing else to offer except the paltry words.
When his fingers grazed my jaw, I jumped then went completely still. He gently pressed, lifting my face up until our gazes met again.
“You truly don’t know?” His eyes seared into mine. “You can’t feel why?”
I swallowed. He wanted to know why I couldn’t feel why? Oh, how I felt. Quite a lot of things, actually. The tingle of his fingertips still lingering on my face, the heat in my limbs, liquid and languorous, tempting me to step closer to him and lift my face toward his. The heady rush of having his burning gaze focused solely on me. But beneath all that, there was something more, something deeper. A safety, a security, I’d never known before. A feeling that even though I’d believed this citadel to be home for all of my eighteen years, in reality, it had merely been a stopping place for me to grow and learn and bide my time until I found my true home—in him. Because if I were honest with myself, I couldn’t picture a life that didn’t have Raidyn in it.
But that was everything I felt. What could he—
And then it hit me, with such force I stumbled back a step, my eyes widening.
He watched me closely, an expression of such vulnerability on his face, it struck me like an arrow piercing me between the ribs, the target deep in my chest, making me ache. That, and the sudden swell of hopeful fear—emotions I recognized but couldn’t claim.
His emotions.
“I can’t hide anything from you, Zuhra. Not anymore.”
The sanaulus. All those things I’d thought were my feelings and mine alone—the ones I was too afraid to name, even to myself … did that mean he felt the same things as me … was that even possible?
Could I truly trust myself to separate what was me from him? What if I had somehow twisted his true emotions into what I only wished to be true?
Every beat of my heart was laced with a painful, sharp hope; my head hurt from the confusion and longing that seized me.
“Can I ask you a question?” Raidyn’s voice was soft, his fear rising over the tumult of emotions. At least, I was fairly certain it was his fear, not mine.
But it was so hard to tell, and I was so very, very afraid to let myself hope.
I nodded.
“Why don’t you trust me?”
My mouth fell open, leaving me gaping at him wordlessly.
He looked to the ground as he quickly explained, “I apologize for being so blunt, but I don’t know what I’ve done to make you think you can’t trust me. I only know that you don’t. And … now that you are aware of my feelings for you, I hope you will at least do me the honor of explaining what I did to deserve your mistrust.”
My mortification grew even more acute, b
ut though I opened and closed my mouth once, nothing came out.
When I didn’t respond, he let his hand drop. My skin was oddly bereft without his touch, chilled and stretched too tight over my body.
“Do you know why Adelric has all three of us in his battalion—me, Sharmaine, and Loukas?”
“No,” I finally managed, baffled by the question.
“We were all Riders, we all had gryphons choose us. But no battalion leader would take on me or Loukas. Sharmaine refused to abandon us, even though she had the opposite problem—nearly every single battalion wanted her to join them.”
“But … why?” I had no idea why he’d changed the subject, but if his goal was to get me talking again, he’d succeeded. I was ashamed that I hadn’t been brave enough to answer his question—especially after I’d made him think Naiki had died. I owed him an explanation, it was true, and doubly so after that. But the way he’d worded it made me realize just how unfair I’d been to him. Because the truth was he’d never done anything to make me think he wasn’t trustworthy. Only Loukas’s accusations had planted those doubts, and circumstantial evidence had continued to make me wonder if it were true.
“Shar is smart, dedicated, and good at pretty much everything. Plus, her power to create a shield is highly coveted,” Raidyn continued to explain. My stomach plummeted as he described the beautiful Paladin who had been in love with him for most of her life. “But she is also loyal to a fault, so she decided she’d rather not follow her dream to be a Rider with a battalion than leave me and Loukas behind.”
Despite the jealousy I struggled to strangle into submission, I made myself say, “But … you’re all those things too.” I flushed when his brows lifted. “Why wouldn’t every battalion leader have wanted you too?”
Raidyn grimaced. “Because after I lost my parents, I was hurt and angry, and I didn’t know how to handle it.”
Warriors of Wing and Flame Page 6