He howls and leaps through the snow. Kayla and I follow behind. In moments, Baron turns into the mountain and disappears.
A cave, nearly hidden by snow-covered vines, is carved into the stone, and Kayla and I duck to enter, both of us pulling our swords out in preparation.
Baron doesn't waste time checking to see if we're following. He shoots through the darkness toward a destination only he can smell. Kayla flicks her hand, and a glow of soft white light appears before us, illuminating the darkness—she knows she can use her magic with me, if not with anyone else. We creep forward, Kayla's light and our enhanced night vision guiding us.
We travel through narrow passageways guarded by stalactites and stalagmites that threaten to impale us with one wrong move, until we reach a cavernous space with two towering blocks of rock standing as sentinels at the corners of a stone door. In the middle is a spiked imprint in the shape of a hand.
My mark blazes. She has to be here somewhere.
Kayla walks up to the door and examines the markings carved into stone. "This is Fae magic," she says. "Only a Fae can use this, I think."
"Do it," I say.
"I'm only half Fae, Fen. It might not work." But she puts her hand over the spike and shoves her flesh into the door until her blood covers the imprint.
Nothing happens.
I curse and punch one of the stone pillars.
"That's not helpful," Kayla says, tearing a piece of fabric off her shift and wrapping it around her bleeding hand.
I walk over and stick my own hand over the spike. I hear something, the faint sound of metal grinding, but then nothing. Using sheer strength, I attempt to open the stone door, but despite my considerable power, I cannot budge it.
"Go back to Stonehill," I command Kayla. "Put together a crew. Find Ace and get his help. Tell him we need something that can open this. I'll wait here. I will break down this door and dig my way to the center of hell to save her, if I must."
Kayla hesitates, and Baron glances between the two of us, waiting. "Fen… " her voice is soft. Conciliatory. And I know what she's going to say before she says it. "We don't even know where this door leads. If it leads anywhere at all." She lays a hand on my arm, as if to soften the blow of her words. "Let us research. Let us think this through. And let us go back to Stonehill. Your city is burned. Your people displaced. They've lost their home. Their loved ones. They need their prince."
"Ari needs me more."
***
I consider staying. But Kayla's words haunt me. What would I do alone in the cave? Beat my stubborn head against the stone waiting for it to break? I will be more useful in Stonehill, so I leave with Kayla, even as Baron dances in circles around the strange door, howling and growling and sniffing and wagging his tail in distress. He can feel her. Smell her. He knows they took her this way. But neither of us can crack the code of how this door opens or where it leads, so we have no choice but to head back to the castle. The sun is near setting by the time we return.
We walk through the city more slowly this time, taking in the damage. The burned houses and destroyed food stores and fallen trees. The bodies that litter the streets. The stench of burnt flesh that still lingers in the air despite the storm.
"We will need to put together work groups to collect and bury or burn the dead," I say as we walk.
Kayla nods, but says nothing.
Until she sees something within the ruins of a collapsed and burned building. She cries out and runs into the ash. I stop and wait, my heart heavy when I see her return with a charred body in her hands and tears running down her dirt-smudged face.
"It's Daison," she says. "He's dead."
"I'm sorry, sister." It is all I can say. Ari would know how to comfort her, how to share in her sorrow, but I have had to lock my heart against the cost of war, or I could never do what I do. Still, I understand. Her pain is raw, her grief deep. She raised that boy, trained him as her apprentice in blacksmithing, loved him as family. The wall around my heart cracks a little for her as we walk.
She carries the boy's body all the way back to the castle, and I set about having the city cleared. The vampire remains will be burned in funeral pyres, as is our way. The Fae slaves who died will be buried, as is theirs. The Shade can go either way, depending on their next of kin preference. Tonight, the sky will burn with the fires of sorrow.
I have Kal the Keeper send out six ravens, one for each of my brother's realms, with orders to hold a Council meeting immediately. I'll need their help if I'm to find Ari and pull my realm back together after the Outlander attack.
Waiting is the hardest part. I don't spend a lot of time in the human world, but I do envy their technology and rapid communication methods. A cell phone would be particularly useful right about now.
To stay busy, I make my rounds through the refugee camps that have formed within the castle walls. Funeral pyres have already been constructed, and many have begun the process of burning their dead and whispering goodbyes. Vampires don't much believe in an afterlife. We are immortal. If we die, that's the end. But Fae have different beliefs, of resurrection, of living beyond. The Shade often straddle the fence on what happens after death.
I stop at each ceremony, giving respect to the dead before moving on to the next. I ask myself what would Arianna do to help the people heal, and I try to offer her words, her kindness, through my body. It's not the same. She's so much better at this than I am, but it's the best I can do.