Page 87 of Void of Endings
Tiernan focused on the witch thread, on the bond tying him to Maeve. He could sense her, still alive, still breathing. There was a faint tug, but it wasn’t in the direction of the palace like he’d expected. He shook his head. “No, that’s not right.”
“What do you mean?” Casimir studied him, his brown eyes darkening with concern. “It’s the only way for us to get into the dungeon unnoticed.”
“Casimir is right, my lord.” Rowan nodded stiffly. “The dungeon is?—”
Tiernan spoke before he could finish. “She isn’t in the dungeon.”
“What?” Casimir asked, brows lifting slightly.
Rowan edged closer, tossing a hasty glance behind him. “If she’s not in the dungeon, then where is she?”
“Somewhere else…” Tiernan reached through the bond, searching for her. His blood hummed, her dull magic calling back to him like a lost melody. “She’s near the palace, but not inside of it. And she is definitely no longer in the dungeon.”
“This changes things.” Rowan roughed a hand over his face, his mouth pressing into a thin line.
“Indeed,” Casimir agreed. He blew out a breath, turning to face the direction of the palace. “We’d been planning for an escape from the dungeon because we assumed that’s where she was being held.”
“It’s what the mural showed us.” Angry shadows rippled around Rowan, and he quickly called them back.
“Parisa must have moved Maeve to another location.” Tiernan wanted to punch something. Frustration wedged itself between them. He should have accounted for this, he should have known better than to assume he understood the workings of Parisa’s mind. “She probably expected me, if not all of us, to come for her at some point.”
Rowan sauntered over to the edge of the illusion, and the sphere of magic surrounding them shimmered. “You think we need to watch for traps.”
It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact, and Tiernan was more than inclined to agree. “I think caution is our strongest ally.”
“Then we should stick to the outer edge of Suvarese, along the forest.” Casimir gestured to the dismal woods off to their left. “To be safe.”
Following Casimir’s direction, they maneuvered their way around the outlying buildings of the city. It was a far cry from the vibrancy of Niahvess. For what should’ve been a city teeming with life, Suvarese was abandoned, a wasteland caught in the trenches of war and despair. Not so long ago, the Crown City of the Spring Court was a thing of beauty. Homes and shops were painted in striking hues of jade, teal, and gold. Shimmering white rooftops curved like vines, and flowers of every color of the rainbow bloomed, overflowing from window boxes and along the numerous cobblestone roads. It was like looking at a diamond beneath a grimy layer of muck. The luster of Suvarese had simply faded away.
Storefronts were boarded up with their busted doors leaning awkwardly on broken hinges. All the homes were dark, many of them victims of decaying overgrowth and crumbling stone walls. From Tiernan’s vantage point, it looked as though the city had been empty for quite some time.
“Where is everyone?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Surely not everyone was able to escape into Summer.”
Rowan moved closer to the deserted city, his footfalls silent against the damp grass. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Casimir threw his arm out, halting Rowan’s progression. Soundlessly, he held one finger to his lips.
A moment later, a wolf trotted out from behind one of the buildings. Its mangy black fur was matted and covered in filth, but its yellow eyes were exceptionally keen. The wolf padded past them, sniffing the air, ears twitching. The scruff along the back of its neck rose slightly, and it loosed a low, guttural snarl. Yet the beast’s gaze did not focus on them, instead it looked toward the tree line, to something else beyond sight.
Cautiously, Tiernan slipped into Rowan’s mind.“Can it sense us?”
Rowan didn’t move, he didn’t even appear to acknowledge the fact that Tiernan had intruded upon his thoughts. But then his brow furrowed and Tiernan heard, “I don’t think so, my lord.”
There was a flutter in the air, the beating of wings, and a midnight raven circled overhead. It let out a jarring squawk before settling on one of the decrepit rooftops.
Rowan moved one hand through the air, amplifying his magic. The illusion intensified, masking their movements, muffling their voices.
Casimir jerked his head to the left, moving with stealth to the forest for cover, when another wolf appeared between the shadows of the trees.
Shit. This was not looking good.
Casimir backed up, one step at a time.
More squawking filled the unnatural silence, and Tiernan tore his gaze away from the second wolf only to discover more ravens had descended upon the roofs of the buildings.They flapped their wings in agitation, angling their heads so that their beady little eyes seemed to stare right through the illusion. A howl pierced the air, and Tiernan turned toward it. Apprehension twisted through him, squeezing like a vise, when he noticed a third wolf slinking along the outer edges of the ruined city.
“You don’t find it odd,” Tiernan muttered, fixated on the approaching wolf, “that there was not a single creature alive in the pass or the forest, and now there’s more than a dozen.”
Rowan’s fingers hovered over the hilt of his Astralstone, tapping restlessly. His gaze darted to the city, the forest, and then back again. “Not as odd as the way those ravens up there act like they can see through my magic.”
