Emberhawk - Jamie Foley Page 0,101

blinked and stood, her chair screeching behind her. “How long has she been impersonating Deirdre?”

“Too long.” Ryon rubbed his temples and contained a shudder at the odd sensation that lingered in the back of his skull.

“Summon Dimbae back,” Brooke said to the guards at the entrance. “Tell him I’ll double his bonus.”

“Are you all right, Chieftess?” the handmaiden asked, reaching a hand out to steady her.

“No. Prepare my leathers.” Brooke rubbed her lips with a cloth napkin and slammed it on the table. “Well done, Ryon. You have some kind of luck.”

Ryon stood and bowed. “What would you have me do?”

“Send out the call to the Elders—the council will meet at noon. Then visit my herbalist and finish healing.” Brooke ascended the steps to the throne, let down her braids, and lifted her headdress to sit atop them. She glanced back over the trail of feathers cascading down her shoulders, and a spark flickered in her eye. “And catch that Navakovrae girl before she gets to Navarro, you idiot.”

37

KIRALAU

Jadenvive’s elevator shook beneath Kira’s feet, causing her brothers to each grab the crate nearest them. Kira gazed up at the buildings through the square hole in the platform above. The treetop city seemed so much larger without a guide beside her.

Ryon, where are you hiding?

The orphanage he’d mentioned was the only clue she had to go on, but Kira also recalled Ryon implying that the Emberhawk orphans might not live in the city’s primary orphanage.

Her brothers watched her from behind with the same unease that the red-eyed gate guard had. Kira flexed her jaw, trying to appear confident, just as she had at the gate. Thankfully the guard remembered that she’d entered on Ryon’s merit.

“Once Felix said if I ever needed him, I could go to the crow’s nest and squawk like a cuckoo bird.”

That was what Ryon had said, according to Kira’s memory, but something about the way he’d said it made her doubt.

She shook her head. It was either squawking like a bird she’d never heard of or searching the entire city for a man who could become invisible the instant he felt like it.

Lee adjusted the lasso that hung loose around his chest. “Maybe you could make something up to get Sa’alu to call off the attack,” he murmured. He hadn’t stopped coming up with ideas since the crotchety wagon driver had dropped them back off at the gates of Jadenvive. “Like saying you ran into a messenger on the road who told you the orders were revoked.”

Tekkyn watched the elevator’s thick ropes shudder. He’d donned an oversized cloak and drawn up its hood, but his blue eyes blazed out from its darkness like stars. “I could, but that wouldn’t stop the Emberhawk.”

“Ryon can,” Kira said with all the confidence she could muster.

“Are you sure you can find him?” Tekkyn watched her with discomfort coloring his bruised face.

“Just follow me,” Kira said as the elevator screeched into its dock. She charged forward through the crowd, keeping her head high as if leading her brothers around was a normal occurrence.

She craned her neck back. There were so many platforms, bridges, and branches blocking her view that she couldn’t even tell how high the city sprawled.

The crow’s nest: the highest point in Jadenvive.

Kira took the steepest ramp she could find—a rope bridge that ascended two of Jadenvive’s many levels. But after fifteen minutes of climbing bridges and spirals curling around the gargantuan trees like vines, her legs were burning, and she still couldn’t discern the top. But the buildings, although more luxurious at upper levels, became sparse and were replaced with wide, sun-drinking leaves.

“Kira,” Lee huffed behind her, “do you have any idea where you’re going?”

“The crow’s nest,” Kira said, forcing a confidence she didn’t feel. She glanced up in desperation and spotted a beacon through the branches, higher up than any other structure. Stones formed a circular building around the trunk of Jadenvive’s tallest tree. A fire blazed out from a ring of glass that connected the stone floor to ceiling. The leaves of the surrounding trees had been manicured so the fire’s light could be seen from any direction. Four long flags fluttered from its roof, and a fifth flagpole stood barren.

That must be it!

Kira bolted for a thin staircase that spiraled up the tree to its beacon. The tree itself seemed to be swaying with the altitude.

She gripped the thin railing and glanced back at her brothers. Lee’s face was blanching.

“Maybe you should wait here,” she said.

Lee