Page 106 of The Bound Mage
Jaxon laughed in her face.
“You really believe that, don’t you?” He stepped back, letting her slump back against the cart. “Get her on the boat,” he ordered. “No more mistakes.”
Chapter
Forty-Four
He couldn’t feel her.
The sun was well past its zenith by the time they reached the temple, beating down on the small group of soldiers Thorne had gathered. They were all tired, their footsteps lagging—but Loren took the steps two at a time, ignoring Thorne’s shouted warning. He couldn’t slow down. Couldn’t wait—not when there was only silence where their bond should have lived.
His shadows led the way, twisting and crawling over the broken stone. Loren crossed the threshold behind them, his steps faltering as the iron tang of blood filled his nose.
Loren reached Eryn first. Eloria’s spymaster lay on his face, the blood around him cooled into a tacky pool. Just a few steps away, Darian Hale slumped awkwardly where he must have died, nothing left of his throat but a mangled ruin.
“Goddess,” Thorne swore, stepping up beside him. “Who is that?”
“Darian Hale. The Arcanum’s High Inquisitor,” Loren said, hardly able to hear himself over the pounding of his own heart. The shadows stirred around him, murmuring as he stared down at the body of the man who had dedicated his life to torturing him. For decades, Darian Hale’s name had meant pain—coldiron and burning flesh, questions asked in a silken voice and answers demanded in blood.
Now he was dead. But Loren couldn’t bring himself to care.
“She’s not here,” he said. “I can’t feel her, Thorne. What if—” His voice broke, the shadows keening as they shifted and milled, searching for her.
“They were supposed to take shelter in the crypt,” Thorne said, using the same calm, soothing tone he used on panicking patients. “We should at least check.”
The door opened easily under Loren’s touch, revealing Veria standing guard at the top of the stairs, a kitchen knife clutched in her hands. When they realized it was Loren, the other adults and the children spilled up the stairs, all of them talking at once.
But Araya wasn’t with them.
“Eryn betrayed us,” Veria said. She stared at the bodies, looking older than Loren had ever seen her. “There were inquisitors waiting for us when we got here. He lured Araya away—I don’t know what he said to her, but she came running in here, desperate to save us. She used a shieldperfectly—gave us the chance to make it into the crypt.”
She’d used her magic. Pride flickered through Loren’s panic, but it was gone in the next breath, buried under a rising tide of fury.Eryn—he’d ignored every instinct, confident that even if Eryn wasn’t wholly trustworthy, no fae would ever betray another to the New Dominion.
And now Araya was paying the price for his blindness.
“Were any of them wearing sigils? Markers of rank?” Thorne pointed at Hale’s body, indicating the gold trim on his padded tunic. “Like him.”
Veria nodded. “The woman—and two of the men.”
“Four inquisitors,” Throne said, glancing sidelong at Loren. “And the others?”
“They were younger. One barely spoke—kept his eyes down. But the other—” Veria shuddered, squeezing the child in her arms tighter. “He took Eilwen’s babe from her. And the way he spoke to Araya…”
“Jaxon,” Loren said. His shadows curled around him, cooling the air in the sanctuary. He didn’t need proof. There was only one person arrogant enough to wait here for her, like a spider poised over a web—while the rest of the New Dominion moved on Lumaria.
And Loren had sent her right into his hands.
He reached inward—into the bond, into that fragile tether he’d clung to since the day he met her.
Still nothing.
Loren clenched his jaw, his magic crackling in the hollow space where her presence should’ve been as he stretched out his mind and his magic, straining to reach her. He poured everything into that desperate reach—his steadiness, his strength, his vow that she wasn’t alone. That she would never be alone again.
But she didn’t answer.
The shadows rippled at his feet, one peeling away from the rest. It crawled toward him, its edges bleeding dark mist as it struggled to hold its shape.Hershadow—as lost and left behind has he was. Loren bent, letting it curl around his arm to rest across his shoulders, exhausted and wounded.
He straightened, fear hardening into resolve. If Jaxon thought he wouldn’t come for her—that Loren would choose the crown and let them take her—then the High Magister’s son was about to learn a very hard lesson.
