Page 29 of Vasmora

“I’ve not lost my senses, Rykaia,” he said, finally abandoning his curiosity.

“Hmmm.” She shook her head. “See, I’m certain Lady Crowlin would’ve said the same.” Shrugging, she darted across the room, not bothering to assess the situation before she threw her arms around his neck. “Oof. You smell like Branimir’s chambers, but I don’t care. I’m just happy to see you alive!”

He grunted and groaned as the pain chewed into his ribs, and she gasped, releasing him.

Scanning him up and down, she frowned, eyes narrowing with concern. “What happened to you? Where’s Maevyth?”

Zevander strode back to the trunk, sifting through gear and weapons in search of his daggers. “I’d hoped she, Dravien and Kazhimyr had found the four of you.” He lifted one gruesome looking blade. Its curved hook had carved intestines from stomachs a number of times throughout the years, on the occasions he’d been willing to spill blood, of course. “Seems you missed each other en route to Calyxar.”

“Dravien? Kazhimyr?” Confusion flickered across her face, and she glanced toward the closed doors of the bathing room. “She’s not here, then?”

“No.”

Her eyes softened to worry. A flicker of fear. “Oh, gods. Oh, merciless gods.” Rykaia pressed a hand to her stomach. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Her theatrics had begun to annoy him. Or perhaps it was the stabbing ache of his shattered bones healing back into place.

“It’s our understanding General Loyce captured her and two companions. We assumed you were one of the companions. It made sense for you to be one of them, and when Branimir told me you were fine and safe, well, surely she would’ve been fine and safe.”

Cold dread snaked between his ribs, coiling around his bones like thick roots that squeezed his chest. “How do you know this? Who told you this?”

“Akmyrios,” Dolion answered from where he appeared in the doorway. “We crossed paths with him.”

Ice crawled through Zevander’s veins, all sound around him fading beneath the blood pounding in his ears and thoughts tearing through his mind. He knew King Sagaerin’s mages had conspired with the Solassions, had heard it firsthand when Loyce had met with their own Captain Zivant. The fact that the general hadn’t turned Maevyth over to the mages meant that stealing her was personal.

A vendetta.

He ground his jaw, his muscles simmering and tightening with a slowly churning rage.

“That wretched beastly woman needs to die!” Rykaia slammed her fist against the table, drawing him back into focus. “Gods be damned, I don’t even want to imagine what she’s done–”

“Rykaia,” Dolion warned, stepping into the room. “Perhaps now is not the time. It seems he has a bit more healing to do.”

Zevander stirred into motion, gathering more of his knives, and laid them out on a nearby table.

Rykaia kept to his heels like a fly at his back. “What is this? What are you planning?”

He didn’t answer, his mind already calculating the distance, the speed he’d need to travel, the terrain he’d need to cross to get to her.

“Zevander!” Rykaia yanked his arm, and he threw off her hand. “You can’t leave in your condition.”

“I’m not lying in a bed all day, dreaming of what Loyce has planned for her.” The words gritted through his teeth while he rifled through the chest for his pauldrons.

“Believe me, I can’t think of anything more satisfying than that scum-blooded hag screaming for her life. But you can hardly walk without limping, and you flinch when you move, whether you’re aware of it, or not.”

“I’ll accompany him,” Torryn said, having taken Dolion’s place in the doorway.

Dolion glanced over his shoulder and shook his head, waving his hand in dismissal. “You’ve only just gotten over a Syrenian bite yourself. Two days ago, you could hardly stand upright.”

Torryn shrugged. “That was two days ago.”

“I’ll be going alone,” Zevander said, setting out a satchel for his supplies.

“Against the general and the entire Solassion army?” Rykaia threw her hands up. “That’s brilliant.” Gnawing her fingers, she paced with the same anxious energy that mirrored his own.

“I have to agree with your sister on this one,” the old mage said. “You’re acting out of haste and emotion. Let’s take a moment to think this through.”

Zevander lifted a vial of empty vivicantem and chucked it across the room, not bothering to look where it smashed against the wall. “Every moment I waste thinking it through, is a minute she’s subjected to that woman’s sadistic torment. Minutes that feel like an eternity.” He shoved a waterskin into the satchel that he’d fill along the way. “I’m going. End of conversation.”