Of Steel and Scale (The Drakkon Kin Trilogy #1)

Chapter 6

6

“No!” The denial was torn from me. “That’s not possible.”

“According to the missives we received from Zergon before their scribe went down, the capital was ablaze and none of the fleet made it out of the harbor.”

Zergon was the smallest of the five islands, and the closest to Jakarra. Garran had once told me a decent enough swimmer could get from one island to the other in little over an hour.

And if they hadn’t been able to do that, then Garran and every other person on that island might now be dead.

Just as all the inhabitants of Eastmead were dead.

I scrubbed a hand through my knotted hair and wished I could push back the fear and distress as easily. “But Jakarra has multiple watch stations along her harbor—there is no earthly way anyone should have been able to attack her without the siren being sounded.”

“It would depend on which side of the island they swept in on.” My father’s voice was grim. “Remember, vast tracts of the northern side remain uninhabited.”

“But surely someone could have—” managed to send a warning before the invasion force swept in, but I spotted Mom’s expression and kept the words back and gripped her arm instead. It was a somewhat useless gesture of comfort but all either of them would allow in a public situation such as this.

She smiled—an extremely pale refection of its usual robust self—and added, “We will know soon enough, though.”

“Rescue boats have been sent?”

Rion shook his head. “Six cutters. They should be small enough to escape detection from any enemy patrol that remains aloft. Once we get a full report on the situation there, we can decide our next move.”

I drew in a breath and released it slowly. “Any word from the patrol you sent into the Black Glass Mountains?”

“Not at this point.”

I frowned. “They should have reached the Beak by now, even without using the more direct older caverns.”

The Beak—so named because it rather weirdly resembled a kayin’s slightly hooked beak when viewed from the sea—was one of the smaller peaks in the Black Glass range, but it was the closest to Esan and gave a good line of sight to the Throat. If our enemy had set up camp on that treacherous peak, they should be able to see it. Weather willing, of course.

“I know, and at this point, I’m not willing to risk anyone else going after them.”

“I’ll go,” I said. “I need to see the queen anyway.”

“You need to rest—” Mom said, then stopped when my father touched her arm.

He knew, like I knew, that I was the logical choice. Very few people knew those tunnels as well as me, thanks to my long years of wandering them as a child. I’d often wondered if my inherent need to explore was part of the reason Mom had insisted I learn sword and bow. They never expected me to move into the military from there, but hadn’t fought the decision either. Maybe Mom’s often reticent seeress abilities had foreseen a future where it would come in handy.

“You cannot go alone,” he said.

“But—”

“No,” he said bluntly. “You’re bone-tired, and that’s when mistakes happen. If we were not so desperate for information I would not agree, but we both know you’d disregard orders and do it anyway.”

“On the pretense of tending to the queen, of course,” my mother added. “But your father is right—you cannot and will not go alone.”

I nodded. I knew that tone from my childhood. Even the soldier in me wasn’t about to gainsay it. “Then I’ll take Damon and Kele.”

A party of three wouldn’t scare the queen, and we’d be able to move quicker and easier through the tunnels than a full patrol.

“Ensure you at least eat something first,” Rion said. “I’ll send orders to Kele to meet you at the cavern entrance in an hour.”

I nodded, lightly saluted, and returned to my apartment.

Damon was standing at the air slit, but turned as I entered. “I’ve ordered us both a meal. It should be here shortly.”

“Good.” I slung off my weapons and headed for the bath. A quick hot soak would ease the worst of the aches even if not the tiredness. “The islands have come under attack. First reports are of mass destruction.”

Damon swore. “Boats have been sent?”

I opened the water pipe and let the heated water spill into the bath as I stripped off. “Just cutters at this stage. We have no idea what they might be sailing into, and they’re not as easy to see in the darkness.”

He walked across and sat on the nearby stone bench. Though his demeanor was all business, his eyes glimmered with appreciative heat as I stepped naked into the steaming water. “I take it you’re planning to be on the boats when they are sent?”

I recapped the pipe and reached for the soapweed. “No, I am not.”

“But you want to.”

“Yes, but I need to make good on my promise to heal Gria.”

He studied me for a moment. I rather suspected he was seeing what few others did, and not just physically. “But that’s not your first priority now, is it?”

I sighed. “No. We’ve lost contact with the patrol my father sent into the Black Glass Mountains. I leave in an hour to retrace their steps and hopefully find them. Well, you, me, and Kele will be, because we both know you’ll not be stopped from accompanying me.”

A smile tugged at his lovely lips. “I do like the level of understanding we’ve reached so early in our relationship. It bodes well for our future.”

“You’ve yet to view me in a shamoke-deprived state.”

He laughed softly. “Nor you me, I’m afraid.”

Another thing we had in common, then. “This may well delay our departure for your city.”

He shrugged. “Our departure is delayed anyway. My father has decided to forgo the traditional celebration of consummation?—”

“Which hasn’t happened.”

“Whether the marriage has been consummated or not plays no part in festivities. You should know that by now.” A decidedly wicked smile briefly teased his lips. “Of course, an hour does still lend us time.”

“If our marriage is consummated in a mere hour, I will be mightily miffed.”

He threw back his head and laughed. Desire skittered across my skin, warmer than the water itself.

“I am, my dear wife, mightily pleased to discover your sex drive appears to be as... vigorous? ... as my own.”

“And I, dear husband, certainly hope you can live up to the promises made in that statement.”

My gaze caught his and silence fell for several seconds. And yet the air burned with things unsaid, and hopes too new and raw to explore as yet. I barely knew this man, but there was already a connection—an understanding—between us that went far beyond the physical.

Dhrukita , something within whispered.

But that was a tale told to little girls growing up. A belief that while not everyone would achieve happiness in their lifetimes, everyone did have a perfect partner—a soul that was the other half of their own. A destiny of the heart, if you will, that echoed down through every life.

It was also a belief I’d never really subscribed to.

This was nothing more than the natural attraction between two healthy, sexually active people. Or in my case, a natural result of being less than sexually active in the long lead-up to our marriage.

As for that connection? I was a Strega, and it wasn’t unknown for the ability to connect with animals to sometimes bleed over into certain people. It had happened once before, when I was much younger, but he’d died in an attack while on patrol in Mareritten, robbing us of the opportunity to discover if our fledgling connection could ever have led to something more than bone-melting pleasure.

I pulled my gaze away and started scrubbing my skin with the soapweed, breaking the gathering tension between us. “When does your father leave?”

“Tomorrow morning.” Amusement ran through his reply, and it wasn’t hard to guess why. I’d retreated from what lay unspoken. He hadn’t. “He’ll send another longship to retrieve us.”

“I take it he wants to prepare Zephrine for possible battle?”

“That is certainly the excuse he’s given your father.”

I glanced at him sharply, eyebrows raised. “It’s a lie?”

His smile made a brief appearance but failed to warm the chill from his eyes—a chill that always appeared when he was speaking about his father. “He hates the bleakness of this place. The unrestrained blackness of it. Zephrine glows. Esan glowers.”

“That is nature’s dictate, not ours.” I paused. “Do you feel the same way?”

“It’s not unlike the topography of Angola, so in many ways, it feels like home.” He held out a hand. “Do you wish me to scrub your back?”

I hesitated, then handed him the soapweed. He knelt behind me and, with long but gentle sweeps, scrubbed away the grime I couldn’t reach. It was an exquisite form of torture, having him touch me so intimately and yet so impersonally.

“You’ve a rather nice collection of scars back here.” Though his voice was conversational, it held an edge that spoke of barely contained desire. “The one near your spine is particularly glorious.”

“And not a result of battle, sadly, but rather riding bareback in the rain and stupidly falling off onto rocks. Túxn was smiling on me that day, because by rights, I should have broken my back.”

“It happened when you were a wild and wandering child, I take it?”

“More like a wild and wandering adult.”

He laughed, placed the soapweed on the edge of the bath, then rose and moved across to the nearby shelf holding the drying cloths while I ducked briefly under the water to rinse my hair.

Someone knocked at the door, the sound echoing. “Your meal, as ordered, milord.”

Damon bid the man to enter before I could. As our meal was brought in, I stepped out of the bath and into the thick body wrap he held out for me. As he drew it closed, he brushed his knuckles slowly—deliberately—across my breasts. My nipples pebbled, and desire stabbed through me.

I stepped closer, rose onto my toes, and kissed him. It was a gloriously intense exploration of mouth and tongue, one that heated my soul and made my body ache in all the right places.

As the soft click of the door being closed indicated we were once again alone, I murmured, “Touch my breasts like that again without invitation, and your balls will become acquainted with my knee.”

He threw his head back and laughed. It was a warm, rich sound that filled the room with delighted anticipation. “Then I shall start wearing appropriate protection.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Is there such a thing?”

Surprise flitted through his expression. “Your male soldiers do not wear a box?”

“It would hardly be practical on the back of a courser.” I reached past him to grab a smaller drying towel for my hair.

“Not all your scouts are sent out on coursers, surely?”

“Well, no, but wouldn’t they be uncomfortable even when walking?”

“They are, but better to be protected than not.”

“To which I can only say, thank Vahree breastplates are far less cumbersome.”

I wrapped the smaller cloth around my hair and then walked across to the seating area. A number of stews and fortified breads had been laid out on the small table, along with a flask of shamoke and a thick glass of green goop—the healing and revitalization potion Mom made when wounds or weariness were not deep enough to bother the healers with. It was a recipe prized by her family and one handed to each new generation—a tradition I would not be following. Despite the fact she swore by it, in my experience it actually had little effect. Worse still, it smelled like a sulfur pit and tasted as foul as I imagined the water from those treacherous places would.

I nevertheless gulped it down, then drowned the bitter aftertaste with shamoke and food. As the time for our departure drew close, I dressed, strapped on my knife and my sword, and then led the way out of the palace and across to the supply stores. I stuffed two packs with everything I needed to heal the drakkons while Damon filled another with trail rations, water, several small but empty vessels—for who knew what—and rope. Then we headed across to the point where the black curtain wall met the blacker mountain. The path that zigzagged upward from that point was long, steep, and barely wide enough to hold capras. Even if we hurried, it would take hours to reach the vent that led into the mountain and the old aerie grounds.

Kele waited close to the path’s beginning. My parents stood on one side of her, Aric on the other. He didn’t look happy, but I was beginning to suspect that was a normal state for him.

I stopped and saluted. My father acknowledged me and then said, “The recon team were using the blue vein lava tube, so even if the queen had arrived, they wouldn’t have disturbed her.”

Surprise flitted through me. The blue vein was a small but spectacular tunnel system that gave them a direct run up to the Beak. Unlike many in that section of the mountain, however, it was not the result of a lava flow but rather centuries of fractious earth movements. Consequently, it was at best passable, and at worst, extremely dangerous.

But the fickle nature of the blue vein tunnel wasn’t the only danger you had to worry about, because that area was not uninhabited. The olm—a sightless, wingless miniature drakkon that could grow up to five feet in length—called those tunnels home. While they fed mainly on mosses and the small vertebrates that lived within the many pools and lakes dotting the underground system, they were also opportunistic hunters. If any of the team had been injured in a rockfall or earth movement, the scent of blood would not only draw the olm, but drive them into a feeding frenzy.

“Where did the last communication place them?”

“A mile south of the Hassleback system.”

Which meant they’d been more than halfway through the tube and well beyond the scribe pen’s “dead zone.” We should not have lost communication with them.

Something had happened. Something other than the dangerousness of the tunnel.

Something unforeseen.

“What of the tracer stones?” I asked.

“We’re not picking up anything with the receiver,” Mom said.

Meaning either the scouts were dead—the tracer’s magic somehow used the body’s heat to transmit—or the tracers were. All magic could be countered, and the spells on tracer stones were amongst the simplest.

“Given the fickle nature of lava tunnels, how do you intend to ensure this team doesn’t befall the same fate?” Aric’s voice was clipped, his annoyance barely concealed.

Granted, he was facing the possible loss of his heir if things went wrong, but given the antagonistic nature of their relationship, I doubted he’d really care. Which meant it was either disapproval of my parents’ approach to ongoing communications difficulties, or simply his distaste for this place becoming harder to conceal.

“Bryn knows these caves—and these mountains—better than most,” Rion said. “She won’t get lost.”

Aric’s grunt somehow conveyed disbelief. “And if the first team are not lost, but rather yet more victims of your unknown foe?”

It was interesting that he said “your” rather than “our.” He obviously wasn’t seeing this as a country-wide threat as yet, which was rather odd. Why would he think our winged attackers would restrict themselves to only our half of the country? Or was it said merely to annoy my father?

I suspected it might be the latter, especially given his early retreat. Whether he hated this place or not, it was a break in protocol.

But then, Aric had a long history of doing that when it suited him or benefited Zephrine.

“Veri can be sent aloft close to dawn,” I said. “I can pass on any images of what we find through her to my mother.”

“Meaning the volcanic nature of the stone doesn’t interfere with Strega abilities as it does the tracer?” he asked.

“No,” Rion said, somewhat curtly. “It does not. And Strega is not a term we appreciate in these parts.”

“I meant no offence, Rion.”

It was formally said, and my father accepted it with a nod of acknowledgment. But his eyes were cold and his expression set. It was the first time I’d ever seen him show a glimmer of anything approaching distaste for his Zephrine counterpart.

Mom handed me a small pouch that held the scribe quill, writing tablet, and the slightly larger receiving stone. I gave her a quick smile, then stepped back, saluted my parents, nodded to Aric, and motioned Kele to proceed. Once we were underground, I’d resume the lead. As my father had said, there were few around these days who knew the old passages as well as me, thanks to the many years I’d spent here as a kid, dreaming up multiple schemes and stories about the drakkons repopulating the old aerie.

And now the drakkons were here for real.

It might have been brought about by a tragedy, but my inner child couldn’t help but smile.

It was well past midnight by the time we reached the vent. It was little more than a three-foot-wide jagged slit in the otherwise smooth rock face, but the air rolling out of it spoke of the heat and danger that still bubbled deep under the mountain’s heart.

I slung off my pack and took a drink, my gaze scanning the darkness that shrouded these peaks. Nothing moved through the night; there were no sounds, and no stars, thanks to the clouds blanketing the skies.

And yet, I couldn’t escape the sense of wrongness.

It was the same wrongness I’d sensed in the few minutes before the boat had been attacked. While I doubted our enemy would risk attacking Esan before they’d fully understood our strengths and weaknesses, a scouting flyover would not be out of the question. And with the moon and stars hidden, it was the perfect night for it.

“What’s wrong?” Damon asked softly.

He’d stripped off his coat halfway up the mountain, but sweat darkened the collar and underarms of his undershirt. The scent stung the air, sharp but not unpleasant.

“I don’t know.” I flicked the droplets of moisture from my forehead and looked toward the peak we couldn’t see from where we stood. “I think something comes.”

“A scouting mission on a night such as this would make tactical sense,” Damon said. “As would a test skirmish. Keeping the enemy in disarray is a strategy that has proven its merit time and again.”

“Yes,” I said, “but they’re attacking us using flesh-and-blood creatures, and there must be limits in what they can and can’t do.”

“We have no idea what the origins of those creatures are, or how warped or strengthened by magic they might be,” he replied. “Normal limits of flesh and blood—even when it comes to the drakkons—might not matter if altered in such a way.”

I wrinkled my nose and scanned the sky once again. Still nothing, but that unease was sharpening.

“Limits or not,” Kele said, “it wouldn’t hurt to send Esan a heads-up.”

“At the very least,” Damon said, “they can ready the old ballistas. If they can bring down drakkons, they can surely bring down whatever these things are.”

“As long as they don’t get too trigger-happy and start aiming at drakkons again, because that would seriously annoy our captain here.” Kele squinted up at Damon, mischief teasing her lips. “You haven’t had the pleasure of seeing her in a mood yet, I take it?”

“No, but I do look forward to it. A bit of spice is always good in any relationship.”

“Spice indeed.” Kele laughed and glanced at me. “The man has much to learn about you, doesn’t he?”

“We can worry about that once we uncover what is happening right now.” I tugged the scribe quill and small tablet from the pouch Mom had handed me, and wrote a quick message.

Once it was sent, the tablet cleared, but I didn’t immediately put it away. My father, at the very least, would still be up. He’d always been a night owl.

A few minutes later, his reply came through. Will alert night watch . Have already recommissioned the ballistas and issued standing orders that under no circumstances can they be used against drakkons.

Relief ran through me. I sent back an acknowledgment, then shoved the tablet and quill away and rose. “We should get moving. It’ll take us at least an hour to reach the blue vein system.”

Damon nodded and motioned me to precede him. I carefully squeezed through the vent’s entrance, then slung my pack over my shoulders and flicked on a light cylinder. The pale yellow beam speared the darkness, lending warmth to the rough black walls. This wasn’t a lava tube and, as such, much narrower than the ones we’d reach higher up. It was, however, easy to move through, lacking the moisture and mosses we’d strike later on. It meant we reached the first of the feeder tubes relatively quickly.

It had been a long time since I’d been in any of these old tubes, but little seemed to have changed. This particular one was spectacular, thanks to the forest of lava stalactites that hung from the roof, and the thick black “high lava” lines that ran its length. The air was warm and still, smelling faintly of sulfur and damp earth. The latter came from the main tube, which was the oldest and biggest of all the tunnels and had long ago been reclaimed by mosses and string ferns.

It took us a good hour of climbing to reach it, and by that time, I was sweating profusely and wanted nothing more than to sit and rest for an hour or so.

But time was against us.

Or rather, against the missing recon team. The olm couldn’t harm a drakkon, small or large, but an injured man, however well-armed, would not outlast their tenacity.

“Vahree himself would feel right at home in this place.” Kele placed her pack on the ground and stripped off her jacket. “Can it get much fucking hotter, or what?”

“Oh, it can, and does.” I stopped and untied my water bottle. “The old breeding grounds are basically a sauna.”

“Oh, something to look forward to, for sure.”

“It’s not necessary for you to accompany me there. Once we uncover what has happened to the scouts, you can head back.”

“What? And miss the only chance I might ever have to get up close and personal to a drakkon? No way.”

I smiled and glanced at Damon. His undershirt clung to his torso, emphasizing the muscular planes underneath, but the man looked decidedly unfazed by the heat. Which wasn’t to say he didn’t look hot—he did. Totally, utterly, deliciously so.

Thankfully, he was studying the ragged carpet of moss that covered the nearest wall rather than me, so missed my momentary slip into wanting.

Or so I thought until he looked at me. The faintest hint of knowing tugged at his lips, and his eyes were bright with awareness.

All he said, however, was, “None of the tubes within Zephrine have this sort of biodiversity.”

“Our earth mages believe the combination of flowing water and heat has created ideal growing conditions.” I took a long drink, though it didn’t do a lot to ease the thirst—physical or sexual. “At one point I think they were investigating the possibility of developing a greenhouse system here, but were thwarted by the impossibility of getting light this deep into the mountain.”

“It would indeed be a massive feat of engineering.” He accepted the water bottle I offered him with a nod of thanks. “How far away is the aerie from here?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Another half hour, perhaps, but the blue vein will spin us away from it.”

“But the drakkons will still be there?”

“They’ve nowhere else to go right now. Not until Gria can fly again.”

“I’m really looking forward to seeing the little one,” Kele said. “You don’t often see drakklings these days.”

“Given how many mature drakkons we’ve killed over the centuries,” Damon said, “it’s a wonder they’re not walking the edge of extinction.”

“They were at one point,” Kele said. “But according to our resident expert here, their numbers have steadily risen over the last few centuries.”

Damon offered the water bottle to Kele, then glanced at me, his eyebrows raised. “And here I was thinking you were two years younger than me.”

I rolled my eyes. “It was once the duty of all archivists to record drakkon numbers. Esan’s still do, though it’s a task made harder by the fact they no longer fly over Esan or use the aerie. I generally head out on the annual pilgrimage with them, just to ensure nothing untoward happens.”

“Untoward being code for them becoming lunch?”

I wrinkled my nose. “We’re more a snack. Not much meat on human bones to satisfy hunger, from what I’ve been told.”

Kele looked at me, eyes a little wider. “Seriously? The queen told you that?”

“No, it was a comment made in passing by a young red I healed some time ago. She was debating the merits of eating humans with me.”

“While you repaired her?” Kele looked horrified. “That’s kinda ungrateful, is it not?”

“I managed to convince her bovine and capras were on the whole a far more worthwhile meal than us.”

My voice was dry, and she shook her head. “Seriously? You’re insane.”

I laughed and stripped off my jacket. My undershirt, like Damon’s, clung to my skin. Unlike his, mine just emphasized my overall lean flatness rather than lovely planes of muscle.

Damon’s gaze did a slow tour down my length and came up... well, amused. I had no idea why, because he’d seen me naked a number of times now and was well aware of my lack of womanly curves. I glanced down to check there wasn’t something strange hanging off me—a random lichen or crater crawler, perhaps—and then mentally shrugged and bent to tie my jacket onto one of my packs.

“Does that mean the reds still have aeries in these mountains, even if Esan’s has been abandoned?” he asked, tone holding none of the amusement I could see. Feel.

“There’re a couple of smaller ones deeper in the wildlands they use, but most now roost in the Red Ochre Mountains. They still hunt here, though.” I slung the pack over a shoulder. “This way.”

I moved out, following the bank of the small stream that had carved out a deep channel in the lava tube’s floor. Greenery flourished either side of it, and crawlers darted for the safety of the water, their eye stalks shrinking back to their crusted bodies until we’d passed.

The slope gradually increased, and chunks of stone littered the ground, victims of the tremors that continued to shake this area.

We were about five minutes away from the entrance to the blue vein system when the queen’s presence sharpened in my mind.

You come?

Later. We’ve men missing in a tunnel and need to find them first.

Not eat. Not that hungry yet.

I grinned, though it was such an echo of my earlier conversation with Kele and Damon that I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been listening in.

Once we find what happened to our people, I’ll come back and finish repairing Gria’s wings.

Good. She paused. Like here.

It was once an old aerie.

Know.

Just as she undoubtedly knew why it was no longer used.

Why men missing? Gilded ones?

I frowned. Gilded ones?

Images flooded my mind, so fast and sharp that I stumbled and would have fallen had Damon somehow not caught me.

His gaze scanned me in concern. “You okay?”

I nodded. “Kaia just sent several images of the birds that attacked them, and I wasn’t expecting it. Hang on for a sec.”

I pulled my arm from his grip but didn’t step away. The birds were about half the size of drakkons, with a shorter wingspan and stubby, powerful necks. Their legs were long, black, and scaly, their talons thick daggers, and their beaks hooked. The metallic feathers cloaked the top of their bodies but not their underbellies, which looked to be regular feathers of a rich, bloody hue.

On top of them, in what very much resembled the type of saddle we used on our coursers—but with girths around the base of each wing and a connecting leash under the barrel—was a short stocky figure wearing what looked to be chain armor made of golden feathers. This covered them from head to foot, and they wore both a helmet and gauntlets—the latter, I couldn’t help but note, five fingered, not six.

The Mareritt weren’t behind any of this.

Which wasn’t much of a relief. At least with the Mareritt we’d have some idea who we were dealing with.

Kaia, when the birds flung their feathers, did new ones slip into their place?

Unsure. Fighting, not looking.

Censure ran through her mental tone. Understandably so. Could your claws penetrate their armor?

Armor?

I sent an image of the golden feathers.

Yes, but hard to get close. Belly better. Unprotected.

What of the rider?

Armed. Killed Ebrus. Flung him .

Ebrus being her male drakkling. The rider? Or Ebrus?

Ripped free. Threw to ground.

My heart began to beat a whole lot faster. If the rider had been fully armored, it was unlikely predators could make an easy meal of him. And that meant, if we could find him, we might finally get some idea of who or what we were fighting. At the very least, if their armor was made out of feathers, we could study and test it for means of destruction.

Would you be able to find him again?

Could. Why?

We need to see who kills your kin and mine.

She considered this for a moment. I help. When?

Need to find our missing men first.

After heal Gria?

I hesitated. First we need to head up to the Beak to see if the gilded ones roost nearby.

Beak?

I sent her an image.

Not seen before.

Unless she flew out across the seas—and few drakkons did these days—she likely wouldn’t. I’ll come to you and Gria as soon as I can.

Hurry. Hates waiting.

I couldn’t help but grin. Impatience very obviously was another emotion drakkons shared with humans.

Hunt now, she added. Gria hungry.

Has your wing fully repaired? I asked, surprised.

Some healed. Membrane loose. Flight still unstable.

I’ll fix that when I fix Gria.

Good.

As the mental connection faded, I refocused on Damon and updated him. “She tore one of the riders off during the attack. He wouldn’t have survived the bite or the fall, but if we can find his body?—”

“We can finally get some idea as to who is behind the attacks,” Damon finished for me. “Do you know where we’ll find him?

“The queen said she’d show me.” I hitched my pack into a more comfortable position and walked on. “The birds do have one weak point, though—their underbellies aren’t covered by the feathered armor. She just couldn’t get close enough to take full advantage of it.”

“Should we scribe Esan?” Kele asked. “The sooner they get a description, the better chance they’ll have of designing a counter.”

“The pen won’t work this deep into the mountain. We’ll have to wait until we’re closer to the Beak.”

“Well, that’s damn inconvenient,” Kele said.

“If that’s the only inconvenience we strike under these mountains,” Damon said dryly. “I’ll consider us lucky.”

“A truth I’m unable to argue with, sadly,” she replied.

I felt rather than saw the sharp rise in Damon’s amusement—another indicator of our growing connection. “And do you argue often?”

Kele chuckled. “Why do you think I’ve never gotten my captain pips?”

She actually had been offered a promotion, but it would have meant moving to another regiment, as it had for me, and in the end, she hadn’t wanted to leave her many friends there.

It had taken several long, heartfelt drinking sessions between the two of us before she’d reached that conclusion, though.

Up ahead, the entrance into the blue vein tube loomed. It was a formidable sight, vaguely resembling the sharply protruding snout of the badulf, complete with sharp lava “fangs” not unlike those of the wily plains scavenger. From inside the snout came a faint blue glow—the rock veins that gave this system its name.

“We won’t need the light tubes in there.” I switched mine off and clipped it to the pack I was carrying on my left shoulder. It was easier to reach than the one on my back. “But keep your hands close to your swords. I’ve no idea what olm numbers are like these days.”

“If the scouting team is injured or, Túxn forbid, dead, then we could be dealing with a frenzy,” Damon noted.

“I know.” My gaze met his. “I hope they taught you more than magic in the home of your heart.”

“I’m well able to handle myself,” he said, his voice mild but the faintest flicker of annoyance evident in his blue eyes. “With steel or without.”

“In bed and out, too, I’d wager.” Kele’s gaze unhurriedly scanned his length. “You do have a look of proficiency about you.”

His eyebrows rose, expression coolly amused. “And what does such ‘proficiency’ look like?”

“Oh, you know, big hands, big”—her gaze dropped to his crotch—“feet.”

“Kele,” I said dryly, “stop flirting with the man. He’s taken. At least, he is for the time being.”

“Does that mean you intend to use and then discard me, wife?”

“I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to do with you, husband.”

But it definitely depended on what he intended this marriage to be. I was happy to give us a chance, but if he wanted to continue his wanton ways, fine, as long as he realized there would not be one rule for him and another for me.

I was a soldier. I was not built to meekly sit at home waiting for my husband to give me a second of his time.

And one look at him said he was very much aware of this. What he thought about it, I couldn’t say. His expression gave little away, and the tenuous link that sometimes flared between us remained mute.

And that was annoying.

As was my own inconsistency.

I turned from his all-too-knowing but beautiful gaze and strode into the blue vein’s mouth. The tunnel beyond narrowed sharply, and the heat became a thick blanket that wrapped around us, constricting movements. The walls ran with slickness, and sharp daggers of rock lined the two main veins, ready to tear at flesh the moment you slipped. None of us did, but progress was tediously slow.

When we reached the first of the cross tunnels, I pulled the receiver stone from its pouch and held it out in front of me. After a second or two, an intermittent pulse ran through it—three beats followed by a short pause—an indication only three of the five who’d started out were alive.

But if three remained, why had no one moved beyond the scribe’s restrictions and sent for help? Were they immobilized? Or surrounded?

The stone couldn’t give me that information, which was damnably frustrating.

I moved on through the narrow tunnel, clambering over rockfalls and spotting the occasional boot print in the moss hugging the tiny trickle of water running along the floor.

We’d passed the halfway point and were closing in on the area where Esan had lost contact when I heard the soft snuffling.

“That,” Kele whispered, “sounds an awful lot like an olm.”

“One that’s feeding,” Damon said. “And the scent of death rides the air.”

It certainly did. I raised a hand and splayed my fingers, warily reaching for whatever lay ahead.

And hit minds filled with nothing but blind, bloody ecstasy.

There wasn’t just one olm up ahead, there were at least eight.

And they were indeed in the middle of a feeding frenzy.