Casteel pressed a kiss to my temple as he looked to where a mortal stood where the draken had crouched seconds ago. “Naked Reaver time,” he murmured.
Everyone was pretty much used to that. While most of us studiously avoided looking below the face, Sage practically sat front row and made no qualms about sizing him up, no matter what form she was in.
“About a day’s ride north,” Reaver announced as Naill tossed him his clothing. “There are some ruins of what appeared to be a small town.”
It took a little less than a day for us to reach the ruins. How Reaver had seen them from the sky was beyond me. Nothing but stone foundations and crumbling, half-standing walls were left.
“This has to be it, right?” Vonetta asked as Casteel gripped my waist, helping me down from Setti. His act was sweet, considering I no longer needed the assistance.
“It has to be.” I turned to Reaver. “You saw nothing else?”
“I traveled to the shores,” he answered, hopping up onto a wall and crouching. “There was nothing but this. The ruins are large. The forest thickens from here, but this was no small village.”
“Thickens more than this?” Emil gestured at the tightly clustered trees.
Reaver nodded as a flurry of snow swirled across the decaying structures.
Kieran unhooked the satchel, bringing it over to me as Delano, now in his wolven form, and the others spread out through the ruins, keeping watch. “You think this is a good spot?”
“Honest?” I placed the satchel on a wall, opening it. “I hope so.”
He chuckled as Perry came closer, and Malik slowly dismounted—under Naill’s constant watch. “I wonder what used to be here.”
“No idea.” Casteel’s brows furrowed as he scanned the ruins. “It could have fallen while he slept and became lost to time.”
A shiver danced over my skin as I pulled out the parchment and a slender piece of charcoal. To think that a town full of people—possibly hundreds if not more—could have been wiped completely from history was unsettling.
Casteel picked up a small rock, placing it on the parchment to hold it in place. “Thanks,” I murmured, writing Malec’s name when something occurred to me. “What was Malec’s last name?”
“O’Meer,” Casteel answered.
I eyed Reaver. “That can’t be his real last name, is it?”
Reaver slowly turned his head toward me. A long moment passed. “No, it is not.”
“Does he even have a last name?”
“Nyktos did not, but…” The wind lifted the pale strands of his hair. “If he were to be recognized by a surname, it would be Mierel.”
“Mierel,” I repeated, the press of charcoal against parchment leaving a smudge. “Is that the Consort’s last name?”
A pause. “It once was.”
Casteel’s gaze met mine, and then I wrote it out. Malec Mierel. The eather hummed in my chest.
“What next?” Casteel asked, his chest brushing my arm.
I reached into the pouch at my hip, bypassing the toy horse I really needed to return to Casteel. I pulled out the diamond ring, placing it on the name. “I just need my blood now.”
“That reminds me,” Casteel murmured, unsheathing his dagger. “I owe you a very large diamond.”
I grinned as I reached for the dagger. “You do.”
Casteel held the dagger. “I don’t want to watch you cut yourself.”
“You’d rather be the one to draw blood, then?” I asked.
“Not in this fashion.” He gave me a heated look that caused my face to warm. “But I would rather do it than watch you inflict pain upon yourself.”
“That is strangely sweet.”
“Key emphasis on strange,” Kieran said as he leaned back, crossing his arms. Vonetta and Emil crept closer.
“Ready?” Casteel asked. When I held up my hand and nodded, he bent his head and kissed me. He nipped my lip as the quick prick of pain traveled across my finger. “There you go.”
Feeling myself flush even hotter, I held my finger over the ring and parchment, squeezing until blood beaded and dropped, splashing first the ring and then staining the paper.
“I really hope there’s more to it than that,” Vonetta murmured.
“There always is,” Emil told her.
“You remember what my father told you?” Perry asked.
Nodding, I cleared my throat. “I call upon the essence of the goddess Bele—the great huntress and finder of all things needed. I ask that you guide me to what I seek to find, connected by blood, name, and belonging.”