Lies of Murk by Eva Chase
12
August
The forest along the border in Donovan’s domain is the stillest I’ve found it in the past few days since the Murk stole Talia from this spot. Everyone else has finally gone off to search farther afield. I’ve joined those efforts, but I keep getting drawn back here.
The last place we know for sure she was. The place that’s offered so few clues. But what if there’s something we’re missing?
I have to keep looking. Have to keep going over every inch of ground with my wolfish nose to the dirt, dragging in every trace of scent. Have to scour every twig for scraps of hair or fabric. Just one little thing could lead us to our missing mate.
I’m not sure how many hours I’ve been at it when I sit back on my haunches and gaze around me with now-bleary eyes. I haven’t turned up any evidence at all.
Another wolf trots over to me through the trees. I recognize Astrid by her pale fur and wiry limbs. Unable to suppress the tiny flicker of hope that maybe she’s come with good news, I straighten into man form as she shifts too.
Her expression offers the opposite of hope. “The party we sent through the portal to Talia’s brother’s town just returned. Jamie is fine, but there’s no sign that Talia’s been there any time recently.”
I nod in acknowledgment, my stomach sinking. I’m glad the Murk haven’t threatened her brother as well, but if they had, it’d at least have given us one more avenue to locating them. And we have so little.
I shouldn’t wish that a teenaged boy was kidnapped to make my own job easier, I chide myself. I shouldn’t have failed in the first place.
Rubbing my hand over my face, I consider what to say. “Our pack-kin had a long trip. Tell them to rest and eat and whatever else they need to do for a couple of hours. Then I want them to take up the patrol west of Copperweld. And we should send another contingent to the fringes to check the other portals.”
Astrid dips her head. Technically we’re equals in authority now that she’s part of Sylas’s cadre, and she has several centuries of experience on me, but she defers to my orders when it comes to the defense of our pack. That’s supposed to be my strength. And yet—
“If I may, August?” she says, in a patient voice.
Her hesitation sends a prickle of shame through me. She shouldn’t need my permission to speak her mind to me. “Say whatever you need to. I’ll hear it.”
She motions to the forest around us. “None of us were prepared for the Murk to pull off anything like this. It isn’t your fault that you weren’t either. I have every intention of finding Lady Talia and tearing apart every Murk that tries to stand between us and her, but tearing yourself up isn’t going to help her.”
My embarrassment grows with a rush of heat over my face. “It was my duty more than anyone else’s to make sure she was safe. On the very night when I swore to be there for her in every possible way, I let her out of my sight—I let those mangy rats—”
“No,” Astrid says, more firmly now. “You didn’t ‘let’ them do anything. They had a very clever scheme that slipped past all of us. All that matters now is unraveling that scheme so we can get her back.”
“Of course,” I say. “I appreciate your honesty.” I know she’s right. But my gut stays knotted as she lopes off to pass on my instructions to our warriors.
It isn’t just the fact that I didn’t catch onto the Murk’s plan ahead of time that’s gnawing at me. From the very first moment I started falling for my mate, I was haunted by the thought of how easily my affection could end up hurting her. I allowed myself to set those worries aside… but maybe I was wrong too. By taking Talia as our partner, we drew even more attention to her than she’d have had otherwise.
I don’t know what I’d have done differently, but I can’t shake the sense that I’ve let both her and myself down.
There’s no point in continuing this search over well-trodden ground, though. I can admit that to myself—I’m not going to find anything new. Inhaling the warm, piney air, I let loose my wolf and trot across the terrain, debating where to turn my focus next.
I’ve spent a lot of recent days telling squads of our pack-kin and other volunteers to go one place or another. Whitt said that he and Corwin came across signs that the Murk are monitoring our efforts regardless. While so many of our people are searching farther abroad, maybe I should give our own lands a closer inspection.
I pause at the castle for a goblet of water and a bite to eat to refresh my senses, and then I slink off into the woods that cover our side of the hell around the Heart. Our domain stretches all the way down and a few miles farther, most of that area forested. It’d give the rats plenty of shelter if they wanted to spy on us in our distress.
The thought makes me draw my lips back from my fangs. I allow myself a moment to dream of ripping into those vermin.
I make a steady sweep of my patrol, back and forth from one end of our domain to the other, lower down the hill with each pass. No hint of ratty scent reaches my nose. No odd glimmers of light catch my eyes. Maybe they use different strategies in the shadows, though. I pause once or twice to cast out a spell to detect magically conjured shadows or other sorts of deflective illusions.
My efforts turn up nothing, but on my next pass through the woods, a different unexpected smell tickles into my nose. It’s wolf, and vaguely familiar, but not any I recognize as our pack-kin.
Of course, there’s a cacophony of wolfish scents all around. It could be from any of the other Seelie coming and going to report on the search. But this one caught my notice because it’s particularly thick in this spot, as if the person stayed here for some time.
I don’t see anything around to explain why they’d have lingered here. And something about the vague familiarity sends a wave of uneasiness through my chest.
Frowning inwardly, I sniff around and pick up the trail a little farther down the hill. As I follow it, a twinge of recognition wavers up from my memory.
Jax. The dark-haired woman from Lord Tristan’s cadre—the one who once threatened Talia. It’s her scent; I’m sure of it.
Why would she have been hanging around in the woods in our domain? I don’t remember seeing her among the various search parties we assembled, although to be fair I haven’t been able to oversee even half of them myself. Tristan’s domain is only about an hour’s carriage ride from the Heart, so it wouldn’t be unexpected for him to send manpower to help with the search.
Something about it just itches at me in a way I can’t explain. So I prowl onward, tracking her scent.
It isn’t easy. So many other wolves have passed through this forest that once I leave the spot where she lingered behind, the distinct aspects of her smell mingle with dozens more until there’s no longer a clear trail. But I continue in the same direction and pick up a faint whiff of it at close enough intervals to stay on course.
My investigation leads me out of the woods to a short span of fields. My back prickles with the new openness and the knowledge that I’d be easily spotted. I can’t see any sign of my fellow fae in the fields.
I hesitate there for a minute and then decide to circle around the open ground, keeping to the shelter of the trees and tasting the air for any sign of where Jax went after she crossed them.
I’m a little more than halfway through my circling when a different odor reaches my nose—a whiff of smoke, seeping from deeper into the woods near me, just beyond the official border of Hearth-by-the-Heart. The breeze has me downwind, so I slink into it, knowing whoever might be up ahead shouldn’t be able to sense my arrival.
The leaves rustle overhead. I set my paws quietly, barely disturbing a twig. Subterfuge might be Whitt’s domain, but any skilled warrior needs the ability to be stealthy when necessary.
I’ve crossed maybe half a mile when the faintest murmur of voices reaches my ears. I can’t make out the words yet, but I catch another hint of Jax’s scent mixed with the smoke from the fire. The breeze shifts, and I ease to the side so I can stay downwind as I creep closer.
When I’m near enough that the voices form audible words, I stop and crouch low to the ground. I can just pick up the flicker of the fire in the distance through the trees.
A figure moves past it—not Jax, but a taller, bulkier man I’ve also seen among Tristan’s close pack-kin. The wavering light dances across a wooden structure behind them. They’ve conjured at least one building to set up a temporary campsite here.
There’s nothing forbidding them from doing so. This unclaimed strip of land lies between a few different domains, not officially belonging to any of them—and even if it did, we Seelie are generally tolerant of temporary visitors as long as they don’t bother our packs. But why have they settled in here when they could be home in an hour?
The first part of the conversation doesn’t offer much enlightenment.
“I thought the hare would be better if we cooked it, but it hasn’t helped much,” the bulky man mutters.
I recognize the reply as Jax’s voice. “No one’s stopping you from hunting down something else.”
The man grunts and digs into his meal with the sound of torn flesh. There’s a faint thump as if something heavy has been moved. They talk briefly about the state of the game in these woods and how much better the hunting was when Tristan’s cousin Ambrose oversaw this area as arch-lord. My hackles rise in annoyance, but their remarks are nowhere close to treason.
I wait, debating how much longer I should stay in the hopes of overhearing something useful, risking another shift in the wind that might alert them to my presence. I’d like to have something more to report back to Sylas than I do so far.
I could simply walk up to them and ask them what their business here is, but somehow I doubt I’d get a true answer.
Then the man says, “Do you think the delivery tomorrow will be enough?”
“Maybe we’ll want another,” Jax says. “We’ll see how it goes.”
He chuckles to himself with a dark note I don’t like at all. “Weapons to protect LadyTalia and destroy the Murk. Ha.”
I don’t like the sneer in his voice when he refers to Talia either. And he sounds as if he’s mocking the idea that they’d be protecting her. Is he saying they’re bringing weapons for some other reason?
“May as well destroy them, the filthy vermin,” Jax says, which reassures me for just a moment before she adds, “They did offer an excellent opening, though, I’ll give them that.”
My body stiffens. An opening to do what?
I strain my ears harder, but the man simply lets out one more chuckle and goes back to his meal. Jax shifts something with another thump. The next time they exchange words, it’s to debate who’ll keep the first watch. I don’t hear anything else that sounds odd.
The wind starts to shift, and I reluctantly retreat. I don’t have much, but I need to tell Sylas what I have heard.
As if he needs to be dealing with worries over Tristan’s pack-kin on top of Talia’s loss.
My heart thumps heavy in my chest as I lope up the hill toward the castle. I didn’t keep close enough watch over Talia—have I missed even more, a threat to our entire pack, as well?
