Vanish (Firelight #2)(26)

Then, through the mist, one of the elders appears. It’s almost comical to see his dignified figure running. “Tamra. You’re needed. Go at once to Nidia’s. Hurry.”

It doesn’t cross my mind to stay behind. We race through town, leaving the elder behind. Our steps thunder on the path. A small crowd stands gathered before Nidia’s house. Severin and another elder, two guards with their blue armbands, Nidia and Jabel.

It’s the combination of Nidia and Jabel that alerts me to the situation, jerks me to a halt. Someone has trespassed into the pride.

Tamra continues a few feet and then stops when she notices I’m not with her anymore. She looks back at me and then to the group, clearly uncertain. I can’t speak. Can say nothing. My body won’t move.

Nidia and Jabel only ever come together for one reason—when a trespasser enters the pride. Nidia may be more valued for her ability to shade the mind, but Jabel is useful, too. As a hypnos draki, she mesmerizes, planting lies in a human’s head to fill the vacant gaps Nidia leaves.

The beating of my heart takes on a desperate rhythm. Heat flares, a wild, fiery burn in the back of my throat.

I strain for a good glimpse of the trespasser. Most of his figure is blocked by the others and a thick fog of mist. I identify his back, the outline of broad shoulders. I swallow against the scald in my throat and take a step closer, my hands balled into fists so tightly that a nail breaks and splinters against the tender flesh of one palm.

Footsteps rush behind me and I look over my shoulder. Several others have followed us. Cassian, Corbin, Miram, and Az . . .

“Tamra!” Severin sees her then. He shouts at her like she’s an animal to be commanded, waves sharply with one hand. “Come!”

Tamra moves ahead into the group and blocks what little view I have. Frowning, I draw closer, my steps slow, stilling to a stop when Tamra whirls around. Her gaze collides with mine.

The blood surges in my veins.

Her face says it all.

No. No, no, no . . .

It can’t be him.

I start to shake my head, wanting to deny it, but most of all wanting Tamra to turn around and act natural so Severin and the others don’t become suspicious.

And then the crowd shifts and I see Will. My gaze devours him, eyes staring so hard they ache. The stubborn honey brown hair still falls over his brow. The hard-set jaw looks as implacable as ever. He’s here. Will kept his promise to me. And then I think, no. Will can’t have remembered that promise. It’s impossible. Tamra shaded him. Maybe he’s here accidentally. Maybe he got lost from his group and stumbled into our midst. . . .

My lips move, but say nothing. I dare not. Shaking my head, I wonder if I’ve imagined him, conjured him where he’s not likely to be.

For a moment, joy swells inside me, before the terror of seeing him here, in the township, mere feet from Severin, slams into me.

He turns to answer something Nidia asks him—probably the details of how exactly he got lost, alone, this far up on the mountain, away from any major road. I stare hard at him, make out the carved lines of his features in the deep shadow of evening, in the perpetual swirl of fog.

Then he sees me, and I know it’s not just simple recognition there. His hazel eyes gleam with such deep satisfaction that I know he remembers. Somehow. Someway. He remembers everything. He remembered his promise to me, and he’s keeping it.

He’s here for me.

Thankfully, my sister stops gawking at me before anyone notices and starts to wonder at her behavior. I give my head a swift shake, warning Will to take caution, to show no recognition. He shifts his head, the most imperceptible of nods, and I know he understands.

Every fiber of my being burns and pulses to cross the distance separating us. My hands open and close at my sides, yearning to touch, to feel him. To feel that it’s really him. Here. Now. For his voice to ripple through me as it used to do. That stroke of velvet revived me in Chaparral, got me through my time there, filling the stretch of my days then, and filling my dreams since.

Everything else slips away as I stare at him. Where we are. The danger that still threatens . . .

Deep down, I know Tamra won’t reveal Will’s identity, and not just because of her loyalty to me. My sister’s not a killer, and she knows one word from her would end his life. Right or wrong, she wouldn’t do that. It’s not in her.

But that hardly means he’s safe.

The air stirs as someone steps up next to me and I turn to see Cassian staring across the distance at Will. For a moment, I had actually forgotten there was someone else who could recognize Will. I follow his gaze, the air hard to breathe, too thick to drag inside my constricting lungs as I process that Cassian is staring at Will—here on his turf. The boy he nearly killed when they rolled off a cliff. Sick misery coils like a serpent in the pit of my stomach.

Nothing’s stopping Cassian from finishing that fight. He’s not like Tamra. It’s in him, down to his very essence, to kill. Onyx draki have been killing for thousands of years. That’s what they do best. Right now, in this moment, I’m caught in a living nightmare.

I look back at Will. Two armed sentries that I went to primary school with flank him like he’s a prisoner. If he’s lucky, they won’t see him for what he is . . . what he means to me. Nidia will simply shade him—useless as that seems to be—and send him on his way. As long as I stay calm. As long as Will gives nothing away. As long as Cassian doesn’t say or do anything.