—F
* * *
Cyrene shuddered at the last line. She passed the note to Avoca to read.
“We’ll have to send someone right away,” she told Rhea.
Rhea nodded urgently. “He’s in trouble.”
She could see how much it had taken out of Rhea to love Fenix after what had happened with Eren. After Kael had murdered him. And how much it pained her to have Fenix in the same kind of danger.
“We will get him back,” she told Rhea.
“Are you sure this is from him?” Avoca asked.
“It’s his handwriting and his code,” Rhea said.
“It just…we need to discuss this before we go running into another fight in the middle of the war,” Avoca said.
“We put Fenix in position for this reason,” Cyrene argued. “We cannot just abandon him.”
“It could be a trap.”
“It could be, but that does not mean that we leave him there alone. Plus, what of these beasts? If it was urgent enough for him to get this message to us, it could turn the tide of the war. Can we just ignore that?”
“We might have to,” Avoca said.
“Cyrene,” Vera cut in, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but this has Malysa written all over it. This is the sort of manipulation that she does. She embeds herself in this way. Pull you or someone else you care about away and then uses them to get to you. She wants to draw your focus away from where it matters—here.”
Rhea glanced between them all. “Did you not read what he said?” Rhea snatched back the letter. “She suspects him. Malysa suspects that he is double-crossing her. That means his life is in danger.”
Avoca sighed. “We realize. And, as callous as it sounds, Rhea, he knew what he was getting into when he agreed to go.”
“No,” she snapped. “No, you cannot just leave him to die.”
She glared at each of them in turn and then promptly fled the tent. Cyrene took a few steps after her, but Vera stopped her.
“Let her go. She can do no harm here. And she cannot reach him without a dragon or portal. It is a hard truth.”
“And what would you do if it were Ahlvie in Fenix’s place?” Cyrene asked Avoca. She looked to Vera. “If it were Henrik in those mountains with your sister?”
“Cyrene, you cannot mean to do this,” Avoca said with a wince.
“I mean to think about it longer than a moment and not let my oldest friend believe that I will so eagerly allow the man she loves and my spy to die.”
Cyrene lay back against the small cot with Dean’s arms wrapped tight around her.
“You should try to sleep,” he breathed against the shell of her ear.
“I can’t sleep. I’m still thinking about Fenix.”
“Well, that’s awkward,” he joked.
She managed a half-smile. “I can’t leave him in those mountains with her.”
“Cyrene, we talked about this,” he said around a yawn. He was exhausted from hours and hours on the battlefield. “It’s a trap. It’s very clearly a trap. For all we know, Malysa has sliced into Fenix’s mind, stolen everything that Rhea knew about him, and forced him to send the note. She’s drawing you in. This is what she wants.”
“Then maybe it’s time to face her.”
Dean tightened his grip on her. “Not on her terms, love.”
She leaned back and closed her eyes. “What am I going to tell Rhea?”
“Sleep on it.” He brushed a kiss to her lips and promptly fell asleep.
Cyrene couldn’t fall asleep. And it was an hour later when she heard a whispered, “Cyrene,” that she was glad she hadn’t.
She slid out of Dean’s grasp, kissed his forehead, and then pulled her clothes back on before stepping out into summer heat. Rhea stood before her in a midnight cloak.
“You have to go,” Rhea said.
“Rhea—”
“No, don’t do that. If it were Dean, you’d already be gone. You’d do it for any of your friends.”
“I didn’t do it for Ahlvie,” she said softly. “I wanted to, but it was too big of a risk.”
“But he was not in danger! She chose him, Cyrene. You must see that this is different.”
Cyrene knew that she was right. “I can’t—”
“If you don’t go, then I will. I will leave right now and walk to the Haeven Mountains to get him myself.”
Cyrene closed her eyes. “Rhea…”
“It’s a jump there, collect him, and a jump back,” Rhea pleaded. “I have never asked you for anything. Not a single thing. Never! But I am asking you for this. Bring him back to me, Cyrene. Please, please, bring him back.” Tears streamed down her cheeks.
And Cyrene saw all those moments they’d had together over the years. All the times that Cyrene had protected Rhea. How Rhea had always put Cyrene first. How they had always been together through it all.
And she knew this was stupid.
But she withdrew a coin from her pouch.
The gold coin that Malysa had given her in her dream and summoned her with. The one she had sworn she would never use.
“Tell Dean that I love him.”
49
The Coin
Cyrene appeared in a pitch-black room deep within the Haeven Mountains. She could feel the press of the weight from everything above her, and she shivered. This place had a…certain feeling to it. Not just heavy, but solid. A thickness. As if the black had a texture or certain viscosity to it. Like she could wade through it.
Before she did anything, she concentrated and let her senses take over. If she had learned anything from Birdie’s death, it was that she could grasp much from using her other senses.
She felt the magnitude of the mountain all around her. Malysa was here. She couldn’t tell where, but she could sense her magic here somewhere. There was also another dark, sinister force. And fainter…magic everywhere. The tinges of blood magic permeated the entire mountain. Did everyone here have it?
She shuddered at the thought.
One thing was certain. The chamber she was in was empty.
With a gulp, she lit the tiniest of Doma Fires and observed where the coin had brought her. It was a round room no more than ten by ten. It was completely bare. And yet, she recognized it.
It was the chamber that Malysa had drawn her into in her dreams. The one she had summoned Cyrene to with the coin. If she had gone when Malysa asked her, she would have been trapped within, as Malysa had been. Thank the Creator she hadn’t done that.
Now, she just had to figure out where exactly Fenix was.
Because that was the mission.
Get in. Get Fenix. Get out.
No detours and no distractions. This was a rescue mission. Not reconnaissance. If there were some other creature in this mountain, she’d figure it out when the time came. Not when she was here alone.
Step one: she had to find Fenix.
She stepped up to the chamber door. And with a whispered prayer, she pushed it open. Thankfully, it didn’t make noise. She peered down the darkened corridor. As far as she could tell, it was empty.