Chapter 38
thirty-eight
Kas panics, several times.
Kas raced across the landing from Della’s room to Nesrina’s. He flung open the door, hoping to the gods he’d interrupt her in the middle of reading a book, or getting changed, or something she’d be equally annoyed about.
She wasn’t there.
Back on the landing, he spied Aylin. The maid pointed to Ataht’s closed bedroom door and pressed a finger to her lips. How had she known he was about to shout across the foyer? She was right. He rushed to her side. “Nesrina? Have you seen her?”
Aylin shook her head.
“Ataht? How is he?”
“Well. The healers said he’s on track for a full recovery. He’s settled into bed for the night.”
With a tense nod, he said, “I have to find Nesrina.”
“Go.”
He pounded down the stairs. A man on a mission, Kas swung by the library, where she was not, then ran to the kitchens, but Salima hadn’t seen her either. Panic welled in his chest. This was very unlike Nes and her predictable routines.
This is the worst-case scenario. His conversation with Hevva regarding why they needed to keep the Big Secret replayed in his mind.
Don’t jump to conclusions, he scolded himself. Look around first. She was probably giving the family space and feeling guilty about Ataht’s injury.
Even his overly rational subconscious sounded uncertain.
Kas went back to the clearing but didn’t find her there, not that he’d really expected to anyway.
In the dim evening light, it was hard to see.
What he could make out was emptiness stretching all the way to the stream.
His eye caught something small and flat sitting on one of the stumps.
Tired from racing about, he sent a thick cord of magic over to feel the item. The book.
He was there in five paces. It was supremely odd that she’d left it behind.
Grasping the old tome he’d gifted her, Kas surveyed the surrounding area closely, looking for signs of a struggle.
He rushed to the creek and waded downstream, praying with every step that he wouldn’t find her lifeless body floating there.
This water’s too slow to move her far. She’s a good swimmer. Bursts of rational thought tried their best but did little to quell his panic. Where was she?!
Back at the clearing, Kas hunted again for clues in the dying light.
Anything. Anything would help, a drag mark, a broken branch.
The glade was pristine. He dropped to the ground and ran his palm over the soft, flat bed of clovers and grasses.
Too pristine. There would be marks here, at least from their lesson.
He rushed to where Ataht had fallen. No blood.
An earthshaper.
Panting, Kas arrived back at the house and sought out Thera. She’d know for certain if Nes had been back to the manor.
As his prickling sense of anxiety predicted, Nesrina hadn’t been seen since earlier that afternoon, before her session with the twins.
Kas palmed the back of his neck.
Worry flickered in his housekeeper’s eyes. “Go, find her.”
He nodded before racing up to Nes’s room.
“Where’s the fire?” Hevva called as he hurried past her on the stairs. She joked at first, until she saw the fear in his features.
“Can’t find Nes,” he panted, throwing open the door to her room and racing inside.
“What?” She followed him.
“I didn’t even tell her I loved her!” he shouted as he rifled through her closet.
“You proposed without telling her you love her?! You know—”
“Not the fucking time,” he growled, emerging with a dress, one she’d worn but not yet washed.
“Did she leave? You shouldn’t chase her if she left willingly, Kas.”
He’d never wanted to shake his sister so badly. “She did not go willingly. I know it. Someone smoothed the glade, it’s too clean. This is the worst possible scenario, Hev. It’s happening.”
Hevva shook her head, forever the calm queen. “Don’t jump to conclusions, brother. We’ve heard nothing from the guards. No one’s sounded the alarm. Kas . . .”
“I’m sounding the alarm,” he snapped, recognizing her tonal shift for what it was: pity. What if Nes had left of her own volition? What if she’d felt so uncomfortable after the proposal and Ataht’s injury that she fled? It didn’t feel right. “Did you do it?”
“Make Nesrina leave? Gods, no!”
“No. Did you clean the clearing after Ataht got hurt?”
Hevva shook her head. “I haven’t been out there, Kas. I’ve been with my son.”
“I think someone took her. I’m almost positive. Something’s wrong.”
“Trust your gut. I’ll speak with the staff and see if anyone saw anything suspicious.”
“The only way is an earthshaper. They could have tunneled in. Who’s strong enough for that?”
“Kas, stop thinking. I’ll handle it. Go! Go find her!”
His sister’s words refueled the fire under his arse. He darted from the room and raced to the stables.
There, Kas opened his mouth to shout for someone to saddle his horse, but the thoroughbred was already waiting. He’d have to thank Thera later, if he remembered. Before mounting, he whistled for his hounds. All three came running. Kas had them scent her dress, and they set off into the night.
Fate, it appeared, was on his side in some small capacity, as the dogs had no trouble finding her trail.
At the northern border of his estate, they barked frantically.
Kas dismounted and tethered his horse to a low branch before following their yelps.
An iron-rich tang assaulted his nostrils.
He would have gagged were it not for the primal sense of panic that overpowered every sense, urging him forward.
Dark boots protruded from beneath a scraggly bush.
A man, not Nes. Relief flooded him, followed by a barrage of guilt.
A person lay dead on his property, someone Kas had a duty to protect, just as the soldier had taken an oath—had given his life—in the name of protecting them.
Lellin growled softly as she nudged an eerily still military-issue boot.
Kas crouched beside his aging hound and grasped the dead man’s ankles.
After freeing the body, he studied his face.
It wasn’t one of the Stormhill guards, but he recognized the soldier.
Aran, or Aram, or something. The young guard had traveled north with Hevva.
Blood soaked his tunic, a wound gaped open at his neck, raw and red, but no longer bleeding.
The soldier had cuts on his palms, but he hadn’t even drawn his blade.
It was like he’d been stabbed mid-conversation, likely by someone he trusted.
Lord Kahoth stood and paced back toward his horse as indecision warred within him. He could have the hounds re-scent Nesrina’s dress and carry on, or he could return to Stormhill and raise the alarm regarding the soldier’s death.
Hevva will handle the guards.
It was true, Stormhill was more than safe in his sister’s hands.
Kas urged Lellin to return home and tell Hevva what they’d found in the woods.
He didn’t expect the dog to speak or anything, but he sent her with a scrap of the soldier’s bloodied tunic, so she might return to the scene with human reinforcements.
After Lellin departed, Kas had Vites and Enoth sniff Nesrina’s dress again.
And they were off. They ran north toward the Dhegurs for hours until they hit a stream.
There, the trail went cold. He roared into the darkness.
It was late, nearly midnight, and a thick cloud cover had rolled in, so he made the gut-wrenching decision to camp for the night.
Kas rose at first light. Using tracking skills un-honed since his military days, he tried to locate her trail, but failed.
The dogs, however, were able to find her scent again, and they continued on.
For hours he moved through the untouched wilderness, hoping they were on the right trail.
For the life of him, he couldn’t find any signs Nes had gone that way.
He wasn’t on any sort of path, nor did he know which quadrant of his holdings he was in.
Only an earthshaper could cover their tracks like this.
The day bore on, and a steady rhythm of anxiety beat alongside his heart, rendering food an afterthought as he searched for Nesrina.
Still, he forced himself to chew on dried meat someone had stashed in his saddle bag.
He had to keep his energy up and be prepared to face her abductor.
He hoped it was only one person. Even up to four shouldn’t be a problem.
But what if there were more? He should have brought backup.
The dogs, who’d bounded ahead in pursuit of Nesrina’s scent, sounded somewhere in the distance, their barks alerting him of their location. Kas turned his horse their way and carried on.
Sniffing the air, he peered through the trees.
Smoke. It wasn’t long before a dark shape emerged at the edge of the tree line a few hundred yards away.
A cottage. Ramshackle and clearly disused aside from the small wisp of gray escaping the chimney.
His hounds bounded back to him, yapping.
He signaled for them to stay and await his return, confident they would obey his command.
Gods, please let this be a kidnapping. While the thought was astoundingly morose, he had his reasons for it.
If she’d run off with an earthshaper by choice and he was about to waltz in on a romantic rendezvous .
. . he’d rather tear out his own heart. Worse yet would be a murd— Kas smashed that concept down before he’d even finished thinking the m-word.
Approaching cautiously, he took a wide arcing path toward the small building, sticking to the shadows of the tree line.
He kept his horse at a walk until the moment a cloaked figure raced away on a mount of their own.
Bent low to avoid being hit by branches, Kas took off in hot pursuit.
The trees seemed to part for the mysterious rider, and it wasn’t long before an insurmountable distance grew between them. Fucking earthshaper. He’d been right.
She’s not with them.
Panic for Nesrina’s life sizzled, leaking into his blood. Nes. He turned his horse back in the direction of the cottage and made haste.
A curl of smoke still rose from the hut’s tilting chimney. Please let her be all right. Please let her be all right. He swung down from his thoroughbred and tied the beast to a tree before drawing his dagger and calling up a swirl of air.
Head dipped low and a primal growl rumbling from deep in his chest, Kas rushed the cottage like some sort of escaped bull. He roared smashing through the small door with a blast of magic.
Tramping into the dilapidated building, Kas stepped over bits of broken door, his knife at the ready as he gave his eyes time to adjust to the dark, bleak space.
She lay upon a blood-soaked bed.
Anguish tore through him, and he rushed to her, knees cracking against the floor when he dropped beside the shoddy cot.
There was blood everywhere. Oh, gods. Nes was preternaturally still.
His absolute worst nightmare was coming true.
Afraid to touch her, not sure where she was injured, he patted her face with little bursts of wind, willing her to stir.
She did not move.
Kas bellowed, so loud that the shack’s single window rattled. Unable to hold back, he lay his hands on her face. She was cold, so cold.
“Who did this?!” he shouted, leaning over his beautiful, ephemeral love. Tears dripped down his cheeks as he bent to kiss her forehead with his hounds barking somewhere in the distance.
His lips pressed against her cool, waxy skin, and she vanished.
She simply . . . winked away. If there was a pop, Kas’s heart was racing too loudly to hear it.
A restorative sort of heat took up residence in his chest, chasing away the acrid blob of torment that had been eating away at him from the inside out.
Facing the fireplace with its fading flame, he noticed something on the floor: Shattered chunks of opalescent black stone littered the planks near the fire. The largest intact piece was in the shape of a semicircle. A shackle. Heartstone.
She got away. She escaped. A crazed laugh bubbled up in his throat. His brilliant and brave Nesrina had escaped.
The barking of Kas’s hounds drew his attention outside. Her scent. His bloody dogs hadn’t heeded his command to stay, but Kas didn’t mind at all. He loved them all the more for it.