Page 122 of Commanding Flame and Shield
“Scrying? I—”
“You can’t screw it up mate. We’ve cleared the bones, we’ve done the enchantment. You just toss them.”
“Well, you think about Alvara. You think of her everything—her smell, her energy, the way she feels, the way she looks, the way her smile affects you. You think ofAlly. And then you toss them.” Jason held his fist out to me. I opened my palms for him, and a half a dozen bones clattered into my outstretched hands. Still warm from having the remaining tissue boiled from them. I stared at them. Stared and stared.
“Find her, August.” Aren set his hand on my shoulder. I turned to him, to find his tears had long since been spent. His pale blue eyes lined in red. Not really believing it, I nodded. And thought of Ally. Of all she was. To me. To the world. Thought of her mighty blade, and keen mind. Of how badly the world needed her relentless courage. I thought of how badly I needed her. How much I loved her. How desperately I needed her to know that. To man up and say it, even just once. I thought of her scent, her feel, the way she moved like water over stones, the way her voice reminded me of chimes on the wind. With one last prayer, I tossed the bones to the map.
FIFTY
ULTIMATUM
ALVARA
Motherfuckingbirds?!
The sharp metallic tang of blood was thick in my mouth, and my head felt like death itself hung in the shadows within it. Throbbing pain arched down my spine like a death knell. Somewhere in the distance, soft music was barely audible. The warm canvas beneath me felt like the hammock-curve of a cot, and I could smell smoke, sweat and unwashed bodies.
I peeled my tongue from the roof of my mouth, hating the feel of cotton that was left in its place. My mind still full of anger that I hadn’t been looking up.
Birds. Fucking shifting shadow birds.
“Not like this,” a guttural voice bit through the air, an English tilt to the words.
“She willbreakhim. She is the key in all of this.” The second was even lower, laced with the same accent. A bass deeper than Marcus. If I hadn’t already had my muscles schooled into stillness, that voice would have frozen me. I knew that voice. Had heard it in a dozen visions. In that dark basement hallway.
“She is the key inmorethan just this, or did you not see inside her mind, as I have?”
“There is no binding a power like that. It’s bullshit. Some fucking wall to defend her mind.”
“Horse shit, Ag. And you know it. Don’t let your blood lust get the better of you.”
“Blood lust?” A guttural growl. I tried to press my mind out to see inside theirs, but it couldn’t budge. Wouldn’t budge against the pain throbbing through it. The only view I would be granted was the one my own eyes could see, which was currently the black behind my eyelids. “They fucking deserve what’s coming to them and you know it. It’s not blood lust, it’s fucking justice.”
“She’s an innocent in this.” The other one snarled, but the first continued, “You didn’t even bother to look through her memories, did you? To scent her? To see what sheisto him? What use will he be if he’s in splinters? I swear. You have the nuance of a brick, and the profundity of a shot glass.” In any other situation, I would have laughed. As it was, I kept my breathing as even as possible.
“Oh, fuck you. Why even bother—Howcan you possibly defendher? Do you even realize how many of us have fallen at the hand of thatbitch? Can’t you feel their souls on her? Smell them? She has slaughtered our kind for no more than sport.”
“It’s a war, Ag. She wouldn’t be much in the way of a second if she wasn’t good at her job. She wouldn’t offerusanything if she wasn’t good at her job.”
“Prick.”
“Blood thirsty bastard.”
Another growl. “They’re not even—”
“Theyare. Don’t even go there with me. If you destroy one, you destroy the other. Besides, her start wasn’t much different than our own. But you’re too Goddamned blind to see that.”
“Are you telling me you think you canturnAlvaraofGrayshell?” A snort of distaste, and humorless rumble of laughter. “She’s Aren Amadeus’ pet for God’s sake.” The second voice spat the words, with particular distaste on the name of my Commander. My sire.
“She sees everything. She’s a better ally than enemy.” Something in the dynamic, in the snarl that followed, seemed authentic enough that it was a fight to keep my heart from racing. My breathing steady and slow with apparent sleep. Were these Renown? My abductors didn’t seem to have harmed me beyond knocking me unconscious, but the headache throbbing there was ferocious. Like someone had smashed an anvil atop my forehead.
Not much time could have passed, as my energy had not refilled in the slightest, and the blood in my mouth was still tangy.
The sudden rustle of leather—perhaps tent flaps—caught my attention, and the warm breeze that followed confirmed my suspicion.
“Adrastos, you’re needed.” My stomach twisted into a tight knot at the name. Even if I’d known it, sensed it, heard it. The energy shifted as someone approached, icy fingers brushed the hair from my face. The sweat off my brow. They were uncharacteristically gentle. It took all my years of training to contain the flinch. My stomach roiled at the touch. The smell of flame and pine.
When he spoke again, his voice was low, hushed and untamed.
