Page 107 of This Dark Descent
Ari smiled as Mikira turned around. “You look perfect. You can do this, Mikira. And Reid will be with you the whole way. You’re not alone.” She squeezed Mikira’s hand, and her heart gave an answering thump.
In that moment, those words were her lifeline.
“Oh, before I forget,” Ari added with sudden urgency. “Did Reid give you your father’s message?”
Mikira frowned. “My father?”
A strange look crossed Ari’s face. “Do you know what happened after Damien was arrested?”
Mikira looked between them. “No,” she answered slowly. “What?”
“I was taken by Rezek Kelbra.” She said it so matter-of-factly. “Reid rescued me with the help of your father.”
She thought of Reid rushing to his room. He’d known Ari was in trouble, and he hadn’t told her. He hadn’t trusted her to help.
She wrapped Ari in a hug before the other girl could protest. She looked okay, but Mikira knew from experience that not all pain was visible.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Ari returned the hug. “Thanks to your father.”
“Thank the Goddess.” Mikira pulled back. “And my father? Is he…” She couldn’t bring herself to fully ask, but Ari understood.
“He looked a little weary, but otherwise okay,” she replied, and Mikira’s shoulders slumped with relief.
She nodded. “Reid didn’t give me any message, though.” Most likely because he was avoiding her. He must have told Ari he’d deliver it to keep them from meeting alone. Did he think Mikira was going to tell Ari about the ring? She wanted to, but she also didn’t want to put Ari in a position to have to lie to Damien.
“Odd.” Ari’s brow furrowed. “Your father said he loved you, and for you to read the journal in his study.”
Mikira’s mind strayed back to the note she’d found on the desk.
I know you will have so many questions, most of which I cannot answer. I hope this can. Take care of it.
He must have left a journal with the note. But then where had it gone?
Concern lined Ari’s face. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She could deal with the journal later. Right now she had a race to win. “Where’s Atara?”
They led her to the mare, who tossed her head in greeting. Mikira wrapped her arms around her thick neck, burying her face in her hair.
Atara nibbled at her shirt.
A heavy-footed tread stopped beside them, and she pulled back to find a royal guard. “Weapons check,” he said gruffly.
“What?” Mikira said at the same time Damien said, “Under whose authority?”
“By the rules of the Illinir, set forth upon its founding, no weapons shall be allowed in the course of the race,” the guard intoned. “Every entrant is subject to search.”
“Then search every entrant!” Mikira snapped.
The guard wasn’t fazed. He wasn’t much of anything; he just stoodthere like a door left ajar. “If you refuse to submit to the search, you forfeit your position in the race.”
She looked to Damien, whose attention was on one of the wooden stands, where Rezek Kelbra smirked down at them.
In the end, he nodded stiffly to Mikira.
Her stomach sank, but she stripped the sheaths from beneath her sleeves and handed them reluctantly to the guard. “I get these back,” she snarled. “Or I take them back.”
