64

Kodan raised her eyebrows at me. “I can see your hands shaking from here,” she said. “Sit back down. Eat. Clean up. Then we’ll go.”

I sat back down heavily. “We?”

“Of course,” Kodan said. “I’m a good tracker. Between the two of us, we should be able to find him. If I went alone, he’d only run from me. But you—he can’t resist you.”

“He might be able to now,” I said, low. “After what I did.”

“I’m sure he’ll be angry,” Kodan said, “considering he has the temperament of a teenage girl sometimes. But I said resist. When he picks up your scent again, he’ll come to you.”

I rubbed my hand over my forehead. “I hope you’re right.”

“Now,” Kodan said, “as much as I want to hear everything about where in the gods’ names you were, you look like you’re about to fall over. Sleep a few hours while I make breakfast. We’ll leave tomorrow, before dawn.”

“It can wait,” I said. “But I promise. I’ll tell you everything.”

“We’ll have some time on the road,” she said. She gestured for me to take one of the spare cots. I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

21

A

fter a few meals of hot food and a full night of rest, I felt much more like myself. I dressed in the heavy, comfortable clothes Kodan had given me, and tied my hair back in a neat plait, keeping it well out of my way. When I stepped out of the small house into the dim light of morning, the village was still quiet, though a few scouts had begun their days tending to the horses in the nearby stable.

Kodan was finishing packing up sturdy backpack. “We’ll be on foot,” she said. “Don’t want to risk the horses drawing any attention.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Kodan said with a grin. Despite the early hour, she was wide awake and looked almost excited, with leather armor strapped on and her red hair pinned back in a plait like mine. “Your wolf led you here. She should be able to lead us to Elias, too.”

“How?” I asked. “I can’t track his scent—he’s been gone too long.”

“Not using scent,” Kodan said. “Just trust your instincts. If he were hurting, where would he run to? What kind of environment would he seek out?”

I sighed and closed my eyes, then took a deep inhalation of the brisk morning air.

I let my wolf creep closer to the surface, letting our senses blend together. With the right focus, I could trace the smell of everything a little more clearly, and feel the ground firm under my feet as clearly as if I had paws.

Where would he run?

Efra was to the east. To the north, the bay separating Frasia and Cruora.

The bay. If I inhaled deeply enough I thought I could smell the salt on the air. He’d want to be close to Efra, but far from the borders. He’d want open space to run. And maybe… Maybe the ocean would remind him of me.

“Northeast,” I said.

“Northeast,” Kodan agreed. She didn’t ask why, or offer any other alternative. She just hiked the pack onto her back, and we headed out of the village and into the balds of Frasia.

It was chilly, but there was no wind, just a delicate breeze as we started off. The hilly landscape stretched out to what looked like eternity in every direction, broken only by the occasional toughened tree and jutting boulders. As we walked, the sun rose higher in the sky, and despite the guilt and anxiety that still chewed at me, the landscape had an inexorable effect on me. Being outside, with a friend, with a mission—I felt better.

I was going to fix this. I had to.

After about a few hours of walking, Kodan pulled hard tack from her pack and broke off a piece for me. “So,” she said.

I accepted it gratefully. “So.”

“What happened?” she asked. “All I know is that you agreed to Draunar’s terms, then were hauled off in to the sky, and then you showed up in my war camp bedraggled and wrapped up in a terrible cloak.”

“Did I really look bedraggled?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” she said. “Where did he take you, when he flew off with you?”

“To his hoard,” I said. “I thought he wanted me as a queen—that I would rule Shianga with him. I didn’t realize how naive that was. I thought it was the only way to prevent war between the nations. I thought a good queen would be willing to make such a sacrifice.”

Kodan said nothing. For that I was grateful.

“His hoard is deep in the northern mountains of Shianga,” I continued. “Plenty of gold, as expected, but there was a hall that led deep into the mountain. Full of small rooms—like cells.”

“Cells?” Kodan asked. “Were they occupied?”

I shook my head. “I was just the beginning. He wanted to keep queens as part of his hoard.”

She snorted a stunned laughed. “How very masculine.”

“There was one other woman already there,” I said. “She’d been there a while, it seemed, though I’m not sure how long. Corinne. The Fae queen.”

Kodan stopped dead in her tracks. “Draunar captured the Fae queen? How in the gods’ names did he do that?”

“I don’t know.” I kept walking, following my feet toward the mountain range looming in the distance, which separated the lowlands from the coastline. “But we developed a friendship while we were in there, and then she was able to use some of my wolf-magic to open a portal so we could escape.”

“A portal,” Kodan said. “To Faerie?”

I nodded.

“You were in Faerie,” she said, slow and disbelieving.

“She was not pleased at having been held hostage,” I said. “While I was in Faerie, I was privy to some of her plans. Shianga is only the beginning. Once she’s settled in her control of that nation, she’s going to begin expanding her reach. I don’t know when, or where she’ll start, but she’s not going to be satisfied with only taking control of one kingdom.”