Page 136 of Mother of Death and Dawn

A crash shivered through the air. The black water around my ankles trembled.

We all whirled to the left at the same time.

“What was that?” I whispered, after several seconds.

Ishqa didn’t answer, instead stretching out his wings and launching himself into the sky. When he returned, the frantic look on his face made my stomach drop.

“We are not alone here. The Ela’Dar army approaches from the south—”

Sammerin swore.

“—and an Aran army approaches from the west.”

This time I swore, louder.

“Both of them?” I gasped. “How did we miss this?”

“Half of the people in Zagos are bounty hunters,” Sammerin muttered. “Everyone knows where we went.”

I cringed. He was right—and worse, we had ended up barely a few miles from where we had started. Nura had battalions throughout Threll. With the help of magic, she would have been able to mobilize them very quickly.

Brayan had been serious. The bounty hunters and spies and mercenary networks workedfast.

“My fear is that they are not after us,” Ishqa said grimly, “but the power that we came here to get.”

A horrible thought occurred to me.

“Aefe,” I said. “Was she with them?”

“I could not get close enough to tell.” Ishqa had the thought a moment after I did. “Do you think she could find it, too?”

I looked down at my hand. How much of this pull would I feel if I didn’t have the wayfinder? How much was the artifact, and how much of it was me? “I don’t know.”

I thought of my strange dreams, the ones that seemed so vivid—dreams in which I felt I was being watched. How much of this magic did Aefe have? Did she feel what I did?

The Arans were probably coming for me, and that was frightening on its own. But the Fey? The Fey were likely coming forthis, and that was utterly terrifying.

Another crash, this one closer. We didn’t have time to stand around and worry about it. “Then we should hurry.”

I stepped into the swamp and Sammerin began to follow, but Ishqa didn’t move.

“Sammerin and I should stay,” he said.

“What?” Sammerin and I said in unison.

“They are coming fast. If they rip this place apart, you could be trapped or cornered inside. Someone needs to defend you.”

“You’ll defend me against an entire army?Twoentire armies?”

“We do not have a choice, I’m afraid.” Ishqa’s eyes flicked past me, to the swamp. “And… I do not know whether either of us will be able to withstand contact with such deep magic, without your inherent tolerance.”

I blanched. This concern seemed like something Ishqa should have mentioned earlier.

“You’re saying that just touching this thing could kill us?” Sammerin said. He sounded like he did not like that fact at all.

“Kill, perhaps not. Harm? Maybe. Could it take our sanity?” Ishqa made a gesture that could only be described as a strong version of a shrug, which seemed odd coming from an elegant, 600-year-old Fey.

I wanted to dismiss his fears out of hand, but I’d watched Zeryth unravel at the hands of magic too deep for him firsthand. There was nothing outlandish about the idea of powerful magic destroying one’s sanity.

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