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“I’ve made an utter cock-up of my command.” She rubbed her temples. “We’ve lost an entire day going in the wrong direction.”
I smiled. “Believe me, I will rectify that.”
“You’re making me nervous.”
“Indeed.” I stood, stretched, my back muscles flexing and loosening, anticipating what was to come. There would be pain, oh yes.
Not only for Miro, whose skin I would peel away and hang on my wall, but for myself. I required blood, a vast ocean of life’s elixir. I needed every last drop of energy, the better to hunt with.
Visca let out an ear-splitting whistle, and one of the vampires in her latest legion, a young human man, hurried to her, guiding her horse.
“I’ll be right behind you,” she said grimly. “Do nothing foolish, lad. Track them, and if that track brings you to the Forian border, then you must wait for me and Wyn. We’ll get her back, but ancestors forbid we start a new fucking war from putting one toe over the wrong rock at the wrong time.”
“Let them start a war. I’ll be waiting for it.”
She gripped my arm hard, digging her nails into stony flesh as she stared up at me. “They won’t hurt her. Remember that. As long as she’s alive, she’s of great value.”
I was icy, numb. I had no idea what Visca saw in my face that caused her to release me, backing up a step.
“Not even Hakkon is that rash,” she said quietly, mounting up. “Hold onto that thought. She’s alive and well, and we’ll get her back.”
I nodded, and tore into the forest without another word, aiming north like an arrow.
With every footfall, every racing heartbeat, every minute that slipped past like sand in an hourglass, I told myself that Visca was right.
Cirri was in Miro’s hands, but alive. Possibly a prisoner, but well.
I would hunt him by land, by sea, by sky. He thought he could escape me, flee Veladar with my Cirri?
No. There was nowhere in the whole circle of the world that he could hide.