Page 58 of Blood Singer

"Your Majesty." Binwee's voice cut through the meeting like a blade. She stood in the doorway, her blue skin flushed with agitation, her white hair a wild mess around her head. "I need to speak with you. Immediately."

Behind her stood one of the palace guards, a young male who looked distinctly uncomfortable. A bruise was already blooming along his jaw, the skin darkening to a mottled purple-green. He kept his eyes carefully averted from Binwee, as if afraid to draw her attention again.

The small blue female was tiny but formidable. I'd known that from the moment I met her. But if Binwee had resorted to violence to get answers, something was very, very wrong.

I was on my feet before she finished speaking. The scientists scattered like startled birds, but I barely noticed. Something in Binwee's tone had my pulse spiking, my dragon already stirring beneath my skin.

"What is it?" I asked, already moving toward her.

"Leila missed a video comm with the Prime," Binwee said, her dark eyes wide with worry. "It was scheduled for this morning. She didn't show up. I went to her quarters to check on her, and..." She paused, her jaw tightening. "Her bed hadn't been slept in."

My chest tightened, but I forced myself to remain calm. "Her bed wouldn't have been slept in," I said carefully.

Binwee's expression didn't change, though I caught the flicker of understanding in her eyes. She'd already suspected as much. "Leila missing a scheduled call with the Prime? That's not like her. She takes her responsibilities seriously. Too seriously, sometimes."

She was right. Leila was meticulous about her duties, almost to a fault. Even exhausted, even distracted, she would've made that call. Or at the very least, she would've sent word that she needed to reschedule. The fact that she'd simply vanished without a word sent ice flooding through my veins.

"Did you check my quarters?" I asked, though I already knew the answer from the way Binwee was looking at me.

"Yes," Binwee said quietly. "I've checked the common areas. The library, the gardens, the dining hall. She's not anywhere in the castle that I can find."

I was already moving, already calling for Sanyra through the comm link. My cousin appeared within minutes, her golden eyes sharp with understanding the moment she saw my expression.

"Leila's missing," I said without preamble.

Sanyra's entire body went rigid. "Missing how?"

"We don't know," Binwee said. "But she was supposed to be on a video comm with the Alliance Prime over an hour ago. She didn't show."

Sanyra wrangled the guards and we searched the castle systematically, room by room, corridor by corridor. My heart hammered against my ribs with each empty chamber, each silent hallway. The panic rose in my chest like a tide, threatening to drown me. I couldn't catch my breath no matter how many times I tried.

Every empty room felt like an accusation. Every closed door was a barrier between me and finding her. The weight of that separation pressed down on me until I thought my ribs might crack from it. The castle that had always felt like home, solid and familiar and mine, had transformed into a maze of shadows and echoes. Torches flickered along the stone walls, casting dancing shadows that seemed to mock my desperation. The air felt thick, harder to breathe, as if the very walls were conspiring to keep her from me.

My mind spiraled through possibilities, each one worse than the last. Had she left willingly? Had someone taken her? The thought of her in danger, of her calling for me while I wasn't there to answer, made something primal and furious claw at the inside of my chest. My dragon roared beneath my skin, demanding I shift, demanding I tear through the castle stone by stone until I found her.

I forced myself to resist, to stay focused, though it took everything in me not to let instinct take over.

The corridors stretched endlessly, each turn revealing nothing but more emptiness. My footsteps echoed off the marble floors, a hollow sound that amplified the silence. Where was she? How could she simply vanish from within these walls? The thought of time slipping through my fingers like sand, that every second I didn't find her was a second something terrible could be happening, made my chest constrict until breathing hurt.

Sanyra found the first real clue.

"Here," she called from the corridor outside Leila's quarters. "Do you smell that?"

I moved beside her and immediately caught it. A faint, sweet chemical scent that made my dragon recoil in recognition. Hibernation gas. The same compound the Alliance had pumped into the statis chambers that had kept my entire species asleep for seven hundred and fifty years.

"Someone drugged her," Sanyra said, her voice tight with fury. "They used hibernation gas to incapacitate her."

"Who?" I demanded, though my mind was already racing through possibilities. "Who would have access to hibernation gas?"

"Anyone with access to the old storage facilities," Sanyra said grimly. "But more importantly, who would want to take her?"

I forced myself to think through the rage clouding my mind. "There have been no threats against her. None. The people love her. She's been nothing but kind and helpful to everyone she's met."

"Perhaps that's the problem," Binwee said, appearing from around the corner with several guards in tow. Her expression was grave. "Everyone loves her. Including, perhaps, someone who might lover her too much."

The implication hung in the air between us.

"A zealous Drakhoni," Sanyra said slowly, understanding dawning in her eyes. "Someone who saw her as a potential mate. Someone who noticed your interest in her, Your Majesty."