“Empty,” he confirmed.

“Fuck!” My anxiety was not pleased to hear that. I was ready to combust, not caring who I burned in the fire.

“Relax, I’m sure they’re just waiting it out somewhere.” But the worry in Hiko’s eyes said something else. He was not sure. If anybody was sure of anything it was me, and I was fucking sure that something terrible had happened.

“I saw Regar heading toward the North gate,” a fae behind the prince said, eyes wary as he looked between us.

Everything within me chilled and turned to ice. “Toward the gate?”

He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“And the princess?”

“Wasn’t with him.”

I took off toward the gate before anyone could stop me. I was going to kill that son of a bitch if anything had happened to Isay. That was a fucking promise.

Chapter 30

KARMUTH

SEVERAL GUARDS, AND REGAR, WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF GETTING their asses kicked by a much larger enemy troop than I’d faced. I was boiling over with fury, but I couldn’t direct it at the person I wanted.

Luckily, there were plenty of other targets handy, and I took full advantage of it. Not knowing if I could do my disappearing act one more time, or if I could do so without harming my allies, I did absolutely everything else.

As my dadao pierced the first enemy’s stomach, I sidestepped the second one’s strike and sliced through his hand when pulling my sabre out the first one’s guts. His shocked cry froze him in his steps and gave me an opening to lay my hands on his skin and draw out both his terror and life force in tandem. I felt the two different energies twirl around each other without merging.

One of them flooded my heart and got carried through my body into every crevice that still had space to hold onto any extra ecos, while the other filled my gut and travelled through completely different veins to hidden pockets within my body that had been starved for years. The second one was not ecos, and it did not strengthen my soul the way ecos did, nor did it feel as essential as ecos did, but something within it excited my nerves.

I’d craved it my whole life; I’d not needed it to survive, but now that I’ve had a taste, I couldn’t possibly imagine staving off it again. A name I did not recognise but that felt right hummed in my head, and I decided it was what I’d call the second force. Devos.

With both new strands of ecos and devos still settling in my body and finding their way through to each and every pore, I faced my next victim with the fury of a fae who’d lost his mate, and he stumbled under my relentless attack.

He soon joined his court mate in my ever-growing force flow when he made a fatal mistake of stepping into my feigned retreat.

“Quaffer!” a Felrothian who’d seen me devour yet another fae shouted, and the cry repeated several times as the news travelled within the ranks as fast as their restlessness did.

“Fall back! Everybody, fall back!”

Without any hesitation, the opponent I now faced turned his back on me and fled. Coward.

If I’d had time to properly dress before rushing out, I’d have thought to put a dagger in my boot. Especially after the surprise attack in the club. I would have thrown it at the fleeing fae just to teach him a lesson on never to turn his back on an enemy, no matter who tells you to back away.

I didn’t have one, however, and while I did run after him, I wasn’t going to chase him out of the reservation. I had more pressing matters to deal with.

I searched the battlefield for Regar and found him leaning over a wounded emotion-feeder. I rushed him and we collided with the electric fence. The current flared through me, and I let go of the warrior to escape it.

Twitching muscles were not enough to stop me from grabbing his collar and pulling him closer to my snarling face.

“Where the fuck is Isay?” I growled.

Regar threw his hands up in defence. “Chill, man, I left her with Ferro.”

“Ferro?” I repeated. “When did he get back?”

Regar shrugged. “No idea, but he took her to the palace. She’s fine.”

Except she wasn’t in the palace and every nerve in my body was convinced she was not fine.

“I came from the palace.” I was not willing to put the two and two together. I would not be happy arriving at the conclusions right in front of me.

“Oh.” Regar’s calm assurance turned into worry that closely resembled my own. “Could it be that they got held off?”

I fucking didn’t think so. It was a pretty straight forward path from here to the palace, and I would’ve seen them on the way over.

I punched the fence in fury and got zapped with a voltage that could take a delther down. Both of my hands in fists, with one of them sizzling after the meet and greet with electricity, I finally put voice to my thoughts.

“Ferro disappeared at the club just before Terwyl took interest in Isay. He didn’t show up again until the Felrothians flooded the place. Coincidence?”

“Fuck, Kar. Do you think he’d—”

“And you handed Isay over to him?”

“Kar, I couldn’t have known. It’s Ferro, for heaven’s sake. He is one of us.”

“He didn’t take her to the palace, Regar.”

“Maybe there’s a perfectly good reason for it.”

I punched Regar next. He did nothing to dodge my blow and my fist connected to his nose with a satisfying crack.

“I’m sorry, Kar.” Regar winced and brought his hand up to cradle his nose. “I fucked up.”

I shook my hand loose and paced in front of Regar to stop myself from strangling him. “You should’ve stayed with her. I trusted you to stay with her.”

“I honestly thought Ferro would take her back to the palace. There was fighting at the gate—I fucked up, Kar. We’ll find her.”

I snarled, “Tell that to the queen, whose daughter you’ve just given to the enemy.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“I can feel it in my blood, Regar. She is not fine.”

“You’ve mated with her? How’d you even…?”

“That’s what your first thought was? For fuck’s sake, I told you, whatever Ferro did to her is making my blood boil. Isay is in danger because of you.”

The severity of the situation finally got through to him. Regar’s face turned grim. “I’ll help you find your mate, I swear to you on my warrior’s honour.”