Cassian and Azriel were beyond Rhys’s and Feyre’s daemati range, though. They’d have no news of anything.
But he’d know if Nesta were dead. In his heart, his soul, he’d sense it. Would feel it.
A mate always did.
Even if she’d rejected that bond.
Nesta had lived through the night, thanks to dumb luck and an Illyrian more interested in politics than killing.
Exhaustion slowed every movement as Nesta picked her way through the dismembered bodies, peeling off whatever clothes were intact and not stained by blood or bodily fluids. Many of the warriors had pissed or shit themselves when the beasts of the forest had found them. Finding a clean pair of pants was a tall order.
But Nesta gathered enough, including a smaller pair of boots for herself and one set for Emerie, and picked up another dagger, two canteens of water, and what seemed to be someone’s half-eaten rabbit dinner.
By the time she returned to the cave—dressed, watered, and with half a leg of rabbit in hand—Emerie was awake. Weak, but awake. She said nothing as Nesta handed her the meat and the water, then helped her dress.
Only when Nesta eased her out of the cave and Emerie surveyed the carnage did she rasp, “Gwyn?”
Nesta, her arm looped around Emerie’s middle, lifted her free hand—the one with the bracelet on her wrist. She slowly pointed her arm in each direction. “South,” she said when the charm gleamed. Gwyn’s general location hadn’t changed since yesterday.
Emerie sucked in a breath. Lifted her own bracelet to the south. The charm glittered almost frantically now, emitting an urgent sense of needing to move, to act, to be swift.
Wonder flashed in Emerie’s eyes before sharpening to grim focus. “Let’s hurry.”
CHAPTER
67
Emerie confirmed that she’d been attacked and chased by the males Nesta had spied at the river. She’d leaped in as a final shot at survival, hit her head on a rock, and remembered nothing until the cave.
Nesta gave her a swift, brutal rundown of her own encounters as they picked their way southward, mostly keeping silent to listen for any passing Illyrians. A few solo warriors ignored them as they trudged past, covered in blood, all heading east; a few packs battled each other; and many more bodies lay on the cold earth.
They scanned for any gleam of copper hair. But they saw and heard no sign of Gwyn. They did not speak of whether their charms might be leading them toward a body.
The day passed, and they found another cave as night fell, huddling together for warmth. Emerie insisted on taking the first watch, and Nesta slept at last. When her friend woke her, Nesta had the feeling that Emerie had let her doze for longer than she should have.
In the morning, they emerged to find blood mixed with the snow on the ground. The animal tracks around the mouth of the cave were large enough to roil Nesta’s stomach.
Soon, snow began falling in earnest. Enough to veil the world ahead and behind, and any enemies with it. They shivered with each step southward, though they’d piled on extra jackets from fallen warriors, and as the morning crept toward midday, Nesta flexed her fingers to keep her hands from freezing through.
If she survived, she’d never again complain about the summer heat; never again take for granted her coat and hat and gloves and that stupid scarf Cassian had made her wear out of her apartment all those months earlier.
“I smell fire,” Emerie murmured. They’d last spoken hours ago, concentrating instead on staving off the cold that was so deep it made their teeth ache.
They halted behind two pines, surveying the terrain, the snow-heavy sky. Nesta consulted her charm. “That way,” she said, inclining her head to the left. “The fire is also in that direction—the wind’s carrying the smoke down from that ridge.”
“It could be Gwyn’s fire,” Emerie suggested hopefully.
Nesta nodded, calming her pounding heart. They inched along, darting from tree to tree, listening for any danger around them, any hint of Gwyn ahead. They’d been moving for several minutes when the laughter reached them. Male laughter.
Emerie’s face paled as she held her bracelet toward the source of the laughter. Its charm glowed, glinting even in the sun’s weak winter light.
“Keep downwind,” Nesta said grimly. “We’ll take the ridge from the southern side.”
A nightgown hung on a branch near the camp’s edge.
Nesta’s stomach rose, her meager breakfast burning her throat. A soft inhale of breath from Emerie was her friend’s only sign of dread and pain as they climbed the last of the ridge toward the warriors camped atop it. They were boasting about the males they’d killed, the remaining trek toward Ramiel. Nesta strained to hear any hint of a female amongst them. If Gwyn’s nightgown was hanging from a tree, then Gwyn—