3. Max #2
Was that why my parents had hidden me? Not just the disguise, not just the mine, but the depth of it—burying me so far underground that even a woman who could see across worlds couldn’t find me?
“And now he has Max’s sister as a hostage to draw her out,” Caspian said, his green eyes on fire.
The image of Missy’s face in the Oracle’s black eyes came back before I could brace for it. Her tiny hands reaching. Her desperate scream, “Max! Max!”
Icy terror lunged for my chest. My lungs tightened, the edges of my vision blurring.
No.
I dug my nails into my kneecaps. The pain cut through the panic. I forced air in—four counts, hold, four counts out—and held the terror at arm’s length until it subsided.
I wasn’t going to fall apart again. Falling apart wouldn’t bring Missy back.
Tears slid down my face anyway. But crying silently was different from coming apart at the seams. I could grieve and still plan.
“How did Xander even learn about Max?” Drakken asked, his brow creased. “It shouldn’t be possible—”
“You forget he has the Oracle’s head,” Caspian said, rolling his eyes. “She must have told Xander about Max, then turned around and warned Max about Xander. Playing both sides for her own agenda. Classic.”
I let that sink in. It made a terrible kind of sense.
The Oracle had been the one to reveal me to the Collector in the first place, then used that same knowledge as currency to reach me—to build a bridge, to buy her own chance at freedom.
The logic of a prisoner with nothing left to barter except information.
“But how did the Collector even get to Missy in Crimson Ridge?” I asked. The words scraped past the lump in my throat. “The fences are warded. The watchtowers are manned. The White Witch’s reinforced military runs the perimeter. It shouldn’t be possible for anyone to breach it.”
“Xander has spies everywhere,” Drakken said, his voice less accusing now.
“He doesn’t need to breach anything. A bribed guard, a distracted patrol, one man picking up a small girl—no one would even notice.
The snatcher wouldn’t need to cross east through the Scorched Wastes the way you did.
They could go west into Nevada, south through Arizona to the New Mexico border, then into Xander’s territory in Texas.
Long route, but clean. No fences. No checkpoints. ”
He’d mapped it without thinking. His warrior’s mind putting the pieces together. I hated that his answer was competent. I hated that it made me trust his analysis even as I wanted to throw something at his head.
“It doesn’t matter how they took her,” I said, pinning Drakken with a stare and meeting his gray eyes straight on.
The hurt from his earlier words was still hot in my chest, and it wanted an outlet.
“The Collector has my sister, and I’m going to get her.
You can think I staged a vision to trick you into crossing into the Haven.
” I threw up a hand. “I don’t care what you think, and I don’t need you.
Trap or not, I’ll go alone. The border between the Zodiac Covenant and the Haven isn’t like the Scorched Wastes.
There aren’t packs of mutants every mile.
I’ll manage. I’ll get in, find Missy, and bring her back. ”
Drakken shifted against the tent pole, the muscles in his forearms taut, and a sardonic smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. I tried not to stare at his lips that could promise a woman all manner of sinful things.
“You sure you can handle it alone, Cadet Max?” His voice dropped low, almost silky and designed to provoke.
The dragon is trying to distract you from your fear and grief, the demon observed, as if it had finished a long, cold assessment.
I sneered at them both. The demon preferred the dragon prince because he was like it—vicious and volatile.
“Don’t worry, sir.” I lifted my chin. “I have a weapon better than any blade in the Covenant’s armory.”
The Coldiron arrow I’d caught between my palms on the train roof now wrapped around my forearm as an armguard.
“You’re the last person I’d ask for help.
” I should have stopped there. But I didn’t.
“And I’m not a drama queen, unlike your girlfriend—Delia, isn’t it?
—or a drama king like you. I’m happy for you both, really.
You deserve each other. A perfect match made…
somewhere.” I wasn’t going to say heaven.
They didn’t deserve heaven. “And one day you’ll even have a drama baby. A little drama prince.”
The tent went quiet.
Aelindor arched an eyebrow, half-amused, half-concerned. Caspian blinked, as though he’d never expected those words to come out of my mouth.
Drakken’s sardonic smile vanished. His eyes turned gold for a second before the gray slid back in.
I was beyond caring. I wanted to lash out, and the dragon prince had put himself in the line of fire.
Then, to my shock, Drakken laughed. Truly laughed. I didn’t know he was capable of that sound.
“You’re jealous,” he said.
My face burned. “Of what? Your girlfriend? Your sparkling personality?” I sneered. “I’d sooner be jealous of the weather, sir, respectfully.”
I wished I could tell him to fuck off, but he outranked me, and the dragon prince had already proven he could make my life worse in ways I hadn’t imagined.
I turned to Aelindor and Caspian.
“I won’t go back to the base, sirs. I’m heading south at first light to cross into the Haven.”
“Do you understand the consequences of desertion, cadet?” Drakken snapped.
Why wouldn’t he leave me alone?
“Do your worst,” I said, spreading my arms, “and kill me, then. Or better yet—burn me with your dragon fire. You’ve already done it once.” He flinched, so slight that anyone else would have missed it. “I’m going. No one is stopping me from getting my sister back. Not you. Not Xander. Not anyone.”
“You won’t go alone, love, because you’re not alone anymore,” Aelindor said.
His hand settled on the small of my back, and I wanted to arch into his touch.
My fury ebbed. “And you never will be. But before we make any move, we verify intelligence. First, we confirm that Missy is in the Haven and not still at Crimson Ridge. Second, we find out exactly where the Collector is holding her.”
“I know how badly you want to go,” Caspian added. “I know the waiting feels like it’s killing you. But you need to trust us on this, Max. We shouldn’t charge into enemy territory blindly. Understand?”
I swallowed and nodded.
I was a wreck, but beneath the wreckage, beneath the fear, the fury, the relentless tears, a part of me had been trained for this. My parents had drilled it into me since childhood: think before you move, plan before you act, survive by being smarter than the people who want you dead.
I’d spent a decade planning my escape from Crimson Ridge. Digging a tunnel handful by handful, threading Coldiron into Stormglass shipments, memorizing guard rotations, mapping the route east. I’d honed patience into a weapon.
This was my worst trial, worse than the mine, worse than the Wastes, because Missy’s life hung in the balance and every moment of stillness felt like her suffering.
But if I went to the Collector before I was ready, I’d never get her out.
I’d throw myself into the hands of a man who hoarded people the way Drakken hoarded gold.
He’d lock me in a case beside the Oracle’s severed head and call it his collection.
Aelindor turned to Drakken. “You haven’t brought in Max’s bedroll.” A beat of silence. “However, if you’re not comfortable with Max staying here for the night, you’re welcome to take her tent. Or anywhere else you’d like.”
Drakken held Aelindor’s gaze for three heartbeats. The dragon was a labyrinth of hostility and suspicion. Then, without a word, he peeled himself off the tent pole, turned, and pushed through the flap into the dark.
The tension drained the instant he left. My shoulders dropped half an inch.
A flicker of satisfaction moved through me at him being dismissed from his own tent.
But the next second came something else, a pull, an absence where his heat had been.
A gap that settled like a quiet ache. The dragon prince couldn’t stand being in the same space as me so much that he’d rather walk out into the cold night than stay.
I stared at the tent flap swaying shut behind him and told myself the ache meant fucking nothing.