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“We should…” Iryana spun around, looking around at all the evidence before her again. “We can’t…”
Pyetar’s arms were suddenly around her, crushing her to his chest. She sank against him, finally feeling like she could breathe.
“I know we came out here for answers,” she choked out. “But…”
“Whoever this was might have seen something important,” Pyetar said gruffly, face tucked into her neck. “We have to follow them.”
“But what if they’re the ones who…” She couldn’t say it out loud. What if they were the ones responsible for the poppies? For the dakii.
He squeezed her tighter. “Then we’ll know.”
She looked up at him, her eyes blown wide. “What would we do about it?”
Those blue eyes darkened. “I guess we’d kill them.”
I guess we’d kill them.
Iryana couldn’t even fathom what that would do, so she chose not to think too deeply about it.
When she felt in control of herself again, Iryana pulled away, looking around the clearing to see if there was anything else of note. She still felt unsteady, almost unwilling to keep going. But she reminded herself again that she wouldn’t let fear control her.
“This is what the creature was watching,” Iryana guessed, looking back at the tree it had been sitting in. The spot was mostly obscured by branches, anything hiding in them was likely undetectable unless someone knew they were there. “It was… spying?”
“Most likely,” Pyetar agreed.
Once they were satisfied that there wasn’t any other important information to glean, they tracked the footprints that led away from the clearing. Iryana moving quicker than she had earlier, adrenaline pushing strength and energy back into her weak limbs.
“Take it easy,” Pyetar reminded her, staying close on her heels.
After following the tracks for a while, she glimpsed the creature’s prints moving parallel in the snow. It had followed this person too.
She felt like something had possessed her, driving her faster and faster through the forest. The sun was up now, the snow sparkling beneath its shallow rays.
Out of nowhere, Iryana stopped. Goosebumps trailed up her body, and she shivered. Had she heard something? Seen something? She wasn’t sure why she suddenly knew she had to stop. The air felt electric with tension. Pyetar had stopped beside her, suspicion narrowing his gaze.
Her eyes found the creature’s fresh tracks, and she realized it had jumped into the trees. She was about to point it out to Pyetar when they heard a crunching of something moving in the snow up ahead, and Iryana and Pyetar both dropped to a crouch.
She met his eyes as Pyetar signaled for her to follow him. They crept through the pines, Pyetar pushing out the milky magic of his shield to obscure as much of the sound of them walking as he could.
Her heart was racing so loud she worried it would give them away. They reached the edge of a clearing and peeked through the thick branches of a pine tree.
Iryana swallowed a gasp.
Chapter Twenty
They’d found the man.
He was turned away from them, his body tall and lean, wrapped in a faded blue coat and topped with a hat made of gray-brown fur. The tail of a raccoon dangled down his back. He was dressed for spring or autumn, not the dead of winter, but otherwise, he seemed ordinary.
Pyetar opened his mouth, but then the man raised his arms, something gold dripping from his wrists onto the snow.
The overwhelming sensation of magic washed over Iryana. It felt like she was standing in the depths of the metal temple again, staring into the well itself and the magic-drenched ground.
A wave of magic spread over the ground in front of the man, the snow shifting and rippling in spots as Iryana stared in horror. Black buds poked through the snow in front of him. More pushed through behind those as the first row unfurled its petals.
The field of poppies expanded, an army of flowers forming before them.
Then, where Iryana expected to see another row of poppies, the snow shuddered violently. A large shape pushed through the snow, covered in blue-gray fur.
