“I can’t do that,” Liam apologizes, his voice lowering. “I really wish I could.”
Tairn roars from my right so hard that spit flies, smacking Liam in the face and making my ears ring. Liam drops his hands and backs away slowly, putting his palms up. “Got it. Point made. No touching.”
Free from his grip, I spin toward the field as Xaden reaches the riders.
“You’re fucking early,” he says.
And my heart stops.
In his last days of interrogation, Fen Riorson lost touch with reality, railing against the kingdom of Navarre. He accused King Tauri, and all who came before him, of a conspiracy so vast, so unspeakable, that it does not bear repeating by this historian. The execution was swift and merciful for a madman who cost untold lives.
—Navarre, an Unedited History by Colonel Lewis Markham
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
Somehow, I manage to keep breathing, which is impressive given my heart feels like it might shatter in a million pieces, and narrow my gaze on the enemy.
I’ve never seen a gryphon rider before. The dragons usually burn them to ash, along with their half-eagle, half-lion mounts.
“What happened to meeting tomorrow? We don’t have a full shipment,” Xaden says to the gryphon rider, his voice calm and even.
“The shipment isn’t the issue,” the woman says, shaking her head. Unlike our black, the riders’ leathers are brown, matching the darker feathers of their beasts…who are currently staring at me like I’m dinner.
“If they try anything, they’ll be a snack,” Tairn says.
Shipment. I barely process what Tairn says through the shock of the rider’s words. And Xaden knows them. He’s working with them, aiding our enemy. Betrayal cuts my throat like glass as I try to swallow. This is why he’s been sneaking off from the quadrant.
“So you were waiting nearby to chat on the off chance that we’d fly by a full day early?” Xaden asks.
“We were patrolling from Draithus yesterday—it’s about an hour southeast from here—”
“I know where Draithus is,” Xaden retorts.
“Never know, you Navarrians act like nothing exists beyond your borders,” the male gryphon rider snarks. “I don’t know why we’re bothering to warn them.”
“Warn us?” Xaden’s head cocks to the side.
“We lost a village in the vicinity to a horde of venin two days ago. They decimated everything.”
I startle, my eyes flying wide. She just said what?
“Venin never come this far west,” Imogen says from my left.
Venin. Yep, that’s what they both said. What the actual hell? I’d think someone was fucking with me if not for the two enormous gryphons looming behind the pair of riders. But no one is laughing.
“Until now,” the woman replies, turning her gaze back to Xaden. “They were unmistakably venin and had one of their—”
“Don’t say anything else,” Xaden interrupts. “You know that none of us can know the details or we put everything at risk. All it takes is one of us being interrogated.”
“Are you getting this?” I ask Tairn, glancing left and right to see if anyone else noticed the pure ridiculousness spewing from the woman’s mouth, but everyone else looks…horrified, like they actually believe a village was destroyed by mythical creatures.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Details or not, it looks like the horde is heading north,” the male says. “Straight toward our trading post on the border across from your garrison at Athebyne. Are you armed?”
“We’re armed,” Xaden admits.
“Then our job here is done. You’ve been warned,” the male says. “Now we have to go defend our people. As it is, this side trip only gives us about an hour to reach them in time.”
Instantly, the atmosphere changes, intensifies, and the riders around me seem to brace for something.
Xaden looks over his shoulder at me, and instead of laughing at the utter absurdity of what they’re discussing, his face is set in grim lines.
“If you think you’ll ever convince a Sorrengail to risk their neck for anyone outside their own borders, then you’re a fool,” the man says with a sneer in my direction.
Power sizzles painfully beneath my skin, demanding an outlet.
The man leans slightly to the side and looks me up and down in obvious judgment. “I wonder what your king would be willing to pay in order to get back the daughter of his most illustrious general. I’m willing to bet your ransom would be worth enough weaponry to defend all of Draithus for a decade.”
Ransom? Oh, I think not.
Tairn snarls.
“Fuck,” Bodhi mutters, moving closer to me.
