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She assumed they were some kind of Fae, but no. Not anymore. Their particles had been frail and fleeting like his were, and this creature was not of Bordoroth.
“What is your name, friend?”
“Dauwyn.” He freed a single sob but swallowed the rest back. “I’m called Dauwyn.”
“It’s so lovely to meet you, Dauwyn.” She helped him sit upright, prismatic light shining beneath her touch when she transferred some more strength into him—hardly more than a twinge for her effort now that he was healed. “I’m Lunara.”
“Did she do it, then, Lady Lunara? Did the mistress figure out how to heal us of the waste?”
“The waste?”
“The disease running rampant in our lands, my lady. The only way the mistress has found to hold it off is to preserve us through transformation, with the promise that she will do all she can to make us well again.”
An apt name for that foul ailment.
Dauwyn’s heart rate picked up again at the wave of murmurs his statement caused. And no wonder. It raised more questions than it answered.
“You have nothing to fear from them, Dauwyn. I swear it.” She reached a hand out to Brand. He eased forward and knelt down. “This is my mate, Brand. The others are our family and friends, some of whom helped me save you. Unfortunately, I’m not sure who the mistress is you speak of.”
Brand’s hand tightened on her own, the bond simmering with righteous indignation, as if to say yes, you are.
Shite.
No. He can’t mean—
“Okthana,” Dauwyn whispered, reverent and nervous at the same time, as if unsure whether he was allowed to say her name out loud. “Mistress of the Bore, and Queen of the Forgotten Lands.”
“They’re leaving!” Thad’s voice preceded him as he rushed into the healing tent, shoulders heaving. “We just received word that every last dreadbeast is fleeing back to the Forgotten Lands.”
Brand shared a look with Magnus, a question burning in his brother’s golden eyes. The excitement in their cousin’s voice was genuine. He felt like Thad. Acted like Thad. Then Amun sighed, shaking his head, and Mag relaxed ever so slightly.
They were all thinking the same thing—Thad wasn’t the imposter they were looking for.
Damn it. What were they missing? Who were they missing.
“The Forgotten?” Magnus asked.
“Still wandering, but they’re the filth we were built for, aye?” Thad puffed up, color high on his cheeks, even more the cousin they all knew and loved. “Without the dreadbeasts, they’re nothing but our usual nuisance.”
Something churned in Brand’s gut. He should’ve been relieved the scourge was fleeing. Instead of the weeks they’d been looking at before, he’d be able to enact his part of the plan as soon as the sunstar rose, but it didn’t sit right. It was too easy. Too—
Wait.
“Did they say when this started?”
“A few hours ago, give or take,” Thad replied. “Must’ve seen what Lunara did and turned tail, the filth. Good riddance.”
Fuck.
Brand blinked and it settled over him like a blanket gone too warm and stifling, Thaddeus only partly correct in his summation. For good or ill, the dreadbeasts were mindless and felt no such thing as self-preservation. But their mistress did.
Okthana saw it and called them back. He knew it to his fucking marrow. The how and why were beyond him, and he didn’t give a shite. All he cared about was that, somehow, her attention was now firmly fixed on his mate.
Which wouldn’t fucking do.
Brand looked at Luna, his teeth grinding.
After getting Dauwyn settled, she’d coaxed most of the others one by one into laying down—a ploy that only worked for as long as it took Fern to realize that Luna was trying to avoid doing the same herself. A single threat from Hedda to start singing, and she’d joined them in a huff.
