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I’d stared at that map, thinking I could look there, maybe follow a trail, but I had no idea where to start. Unable to shake the unease of the dream, I leaned back, my hands sliding over my midsection. I lifted the white shirt I’d worn to the party, but my flesh was still whole with no new wounds, only scars from battles long past. I closed my eyes and took one shuddering breath, then another. Sweat drenched me, and I shook. It was a nightmare, but so much more. Another vision, only it felt so real.
She is too strong now, too powerful. She will eat worlds.
He meant Dianna, and I did not know how to reach her now. But I knew I couldn’t stay here and do nothing, pretending the world wasn’t at stake while the mortals asked for parties and reassurance.
“Samkiel, forgive me.”
A voice whispered in the wind with a message only I heard. I was on my feet the next instant.
Logan.
I portalled and appeared in his room between one breath and the next. My body formed with tendrils of electricity sparking beneath my skin. His room was empty, his bed made, and his bags untouched. I left and reformed in Vincent’s room. He shot up out of a dead sleep, the lights flickering. The female ambassador in bed beside him grabbed the sheet and slid farther beneath the covers.
“What is it?”
“Logan.” That was all I said before I left the room and went to wake the others.
* * *
“Was it the dying chant?” Xavier asked as I paced in front of the abandoned mine entrance. We had searched from Nochari to Kashuenia and well into the following day but found nothing. Nothing but empty mines, the same as before, but I knew he had been revisiting these places, looking for Neverra.
“No.”
He sighed, brushing the dirt from his sleeves. I thought there had been something at the last place. I had felt this wave of energy hit my gut as if something roared inside me for a split second. It felt like a portal opening or an alert, a sense of awareness telling me I was close, but it vanished as soon as it happened. So we left and went in search of Imogen and Cameron. They exited the mine covered in grime, calling back their ablazed weapons.
“Nothing,” Imogen said, stopping and looking behind her. “I don’t feel or sense anything remotely celestial.”
A sharp ring cut through the silence, and every eye turned toward me.
“What?”
Cameron nodded toward my pocket. “Are you going to get that?”
I glanced down, realizing the sharp ring was coming from the phone in my pocket. Logan had forced me to get it so I could communicate with everyone. What if he was gone, too? What if I couldn’t get him back or save him like her, like my father? My chest burned, but I pulled the phone out. Vincent’s name flashed across the screen. I answered and demanded without greeting, “Did you find Logan?”
The line was silent for a second, then Vincent said, “No, but we have a bigger issue, I think.”
“What?”
“Just get back to Silver City. Now.”
* * *
Cameron, Xavier, Imogen, and I reformed in the main guild hall in Boel. Voices murmured from behind the thick wooden doors. I stalked forward, my feet barely touching the ground. My power thrust before me, pushing the doors open so forcefully that they cracked.
“How can you not know where she is?” Vincent demanded. He turned to look at us, and shock forced me to a stop, the others slamming into my back. They recovered quickly and fanned out on each side of me. I blinked, unable to believe what I was seeing. What was Roccurem doing here?
“God king, you have returned from your wasted adventure, it seems,” Roccurem said.
I snapped. Call it lack of sleep, burning nerves, or that I was close to losing another person I cared for deeply. The lights above me burst one by one as I stalked toward Roccurem.
“Abandoning your realm. Treason. Aiding and abetting a known fugitive. Treason. Disregarding your king’s orders and commands. Treason.” I stopped, towering over him. “All punishable by death under the Council of Hadrameil.”
“Yes, under your father’s rule. I do not follow your father any longer.”
“No, you follow me.”
“No, I follow her.”
