Cloak of Night (Circle of Shadows #2) - Evelyn Skye Page 0,62
It felt like Broomstick was losing his mind—our gemina connection was all chaos and black smoke and then it suddenly went blank. Where did he go? What happened? Do you think . . . ? Oh gods.”
Wolf tried to catch her, to put his arms around her and comfort her, but she shook away from him and continued her frenetic pace around the clearing. It was as if standing still would allow all the fear to catch up to her. She had to keep moving.
“Something definitely happened,” he said. “My connection with Sora is taut, like a fishing line. She’s worried—I can feel it in the tension of the bond—but at the same time, I can tell it’s not despair.”
“Why can’t I feel Broomstick, then?”
“I don’t know,” Wolf said gently. “I do know, though, that I lost track of Sora before and she ended up all right. Broomstick lost track of you, too, remember?”
Fairy gave Daemon a flat stare. “Yes, because I was drugged to a deathlike state of unconsciousness.”
“You weren’t dead, though.”
“I could have been!” Fairy threw her arms in the air.
“He’s . . .” Wolf shook his head. “He’s got to be alive. I’d know it if he weren’t. Sora would send me some hint of it through our bond.”
Fairy paced some more. She understood the logic of what Wolf was saying, but it didn’t make being here—away from her gemina—any easier. What was she supposed to do? Just sit around and wait until Sora sent them another messenger? Or until there was complete emptiness in her connection? Warriors who had lost their geminas described the feeling as a boulder slamming their bond shut, a heavy finality when there was no longer someone else on the other end. That’s not what she sensed now, but it was eerily silent, as if she was walking through an abandoned corridor that might lead to that boulder.
“We have to go to them.” She marched toward their meager camp.
“What?” Wolf trailed behind her. “We’re supposed to stay here and keep searching the Imperial City for Empress Aki. And we’re still waiting to get a response from my brother.” They’d been trying to reach Liga ever since they returned from the Dragon Prince’s study but to no avail.
Fairy whirled on him. “The empress isn’t here, all right? We’ve spent days crawling through the castle and the Citadel and haven’t found a trace of her. For all we know, Prince Gin already killed her. But my gemina—our friend—isn’t dead yet, and we need to help him!”
Wolf stopped short. He looked guiltily at his feet. “You’re right. We’re supposed to be there for each other.”
He closed the distance between himself and Fairy and held open his arms. This time, she let him hold her. She buried her face in his chest and allowed the fear to hit her fully, tears streaming down her cheeks. “What if Broomstick isn’t all right? What if he dies and I wasn’t there for him?” she said.
“Shh.” Wolf stroked her hair. “He’s not going to die. And we’ll fly to Naimo Ice Caves as soon as we’re packed.”
Fairy pulled away and wiped her eyes and nose on her sleeve. “I don’t want to waste another minute. He needs me.” She hurried over to fold her sleeping mat and gather her weapons. She packed up the wild persimmons she’d found on a tree that morning during foraging, then grabbed her copy of the map from the Dragon Prince’s study and rolled it into a scroll, placing it safely inside her bag.
Beside her, Wolf also packed his bags, but instead of stashing knives and other weapons into his sleeves and hidden pockets, he unloaded all of them into a satchel.
“Aren’t you going to need those?” Fairy asked.
“Can’t use them when I’m a wolf.”
Oh, right. How else were they going to fly down to the other side of the kingdom? Worrying about Broomstick was clouding her head. But the thought of Wolf in his demigod form lifted her spirits a little.
He began to lay out a system of straps he’d been working on while they were stationed here in the forest. It was a harness to allow him to carry their supplies.
When they were ready, Wolf shifted in a glow of soft blue light. His transitions were smooth now, after all the practice Liga had put him through. “You know how the harness works?”
Fairy nodded. She threw the straps over his back, then lay on the ground, scooting to slide under him and