After interrogating a few commanders in nearby outposts, Gavriel and Rowan finally made it to Doranelle. Rowan paced on the edge of their camp restlessly. They had argued about how to get in and both came up without ideas that didn't involve getting spotted and either killed or captured. Rowan's bond throbbed as he paced and he snarled spinning on his heel utility to pace back in the direction he'd just come.

Maeve's aerial legions were on careful watch, their numbers doubled. She may not have known they were coming, but her reinforcements indicated that she hadn't discounted the possibility either. She had Aelin of the Wildfire, she would not be careless in guarding her prize.

"Rowan," Gavriel spoke suddenly and quietly.

Rowan's attention snapped to the Lion who nodded at one of the bridges nearest to them leading out of Doranelle. A small, curvy female with thick dark curls was strolling out into the forest.

It was Essar, taking her evening walks in the woods.

It was too good to be true. Rowan never dreamed of a coincidence like this.

Go, Rowan felt Mala urging him. Go.

So it hadn't been a coincidence. Rowan shook his head, his fury at the goddess for what she was demanding of Aelin was nothing compared to the desperation roaring in his veins to find his mate by any means possible.

He nodded at Gavriel and they started out in pursuit of the potential ally.

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Asterin and Elide barely made it to shore before Nerene made a sloppy landing along the beach and all but collapsed in the sand.

"You're such a good girl," Asterin slid out of the saddle and came around to press her forehead to her wyvern's scaled brow. "Oh! Such a good girl."

The poor beast moaned as Elide slid off, careful to mind her ankle, and Asterin coaxed her toward the woods for better cover. The wyvern's whole frame shook with the exertion of her two day straight flight, but she obligingly crawled after Asterin's command.

"Such a good girl!" Asterin kept saying.

"I see smoke," Elide called to her companion. "I think it's a village, I'll be back before dark."

Asterin nodded but didn't stop coaxing Nerene toward the treeline.

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Lorcan managed to limp along for a few hours in the morning, but by the afternoon he was vomiting his insides again. At least that's what it felt like. His chest was heavy and he had a hard time breathing. Every time he coughed it brought up a pool of that blackish poison and induced another fit of vomiting bile and blood. Every moment now was mingled with the taste of blood.

He found a small cave and sent a probe of magic through it to see if it was occupied before crawling in; literally crawling on all fours. Once inside he collapsed on his side and fell in and out of consciousness, hallucinating a girl who smelled like the sea and a tawny-eyed male who carried hidden fury in his bones and a witch with full lips and dark eyes and a cunning mind. He was never sure what was real and what was hallucination but he could tell a fever was setting in.

By the time night began to fall, the siren of wolves in the relative area urged him to crawl back out into the woods to gather wood. He lit a fire rounded by small rocks in the entrance of the cave and worked hard to keep it going all night.

Although many pairs of yellow eyes glinted across the flames at him that night, they wouldn't come too close for fear of the fire. It was probably the only thing that kept him alive as he shivered in the cave, burning from the inside out and only half-aware of what was real.

At one point he thought he heard Gavriel's voice through the bond asking him something, but he couldn't find the strength to muster a response and eventually the Lion left again.

The pack leader snarled on the other side of the fire from him and Lorcan bared his teeth to snarl back. It was only a matter of time now, but he had promised Gavriel he would fight it. And fight it, Lorcan would. Promise to his carranam or not, he had never intended to go easily.

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Elide knew Lorcan was headed to Mistward from his and Gavriel's memories, and she also knew that neither actually believed he'd make it that far. What she didn't know was exactly where he was in the mountains. He looked feverish in the past few days and had crawled into a cave for shelter two days ago. He had failed to reemerge from the cave and Elide was anxious to get going but Nerene needed rest and Elide knew better than to try and push Asterin. The witch was being extraordinarily protective of the massive beast and her temper had run on a short fuse for the past day and a half as Nerene rested and recovered from the journey across the sea.

As the Wyvern rested and the witch fussed, Elide had been visiting inns to flirt, question and retrieve any sort of information that she could about the mountains, Maeve, and Mistward. She'd run across many more demi-fae in Wendlyn than she'd expected and was fascinated to find their opinions about each of her topics of interest. Some deified Maeve and the Fae, some demonized them. Some dreamed of someday moving to the city of waterfalls and others snarled at her noticing their heritage.

"I'm a person," one demi-fae male she'd been questioning snarled at her when she'd commented on a few of his more fae-like features. "Not some savage animal."

He had been much less helpful after that and his interest in her had all but died instantly. She wondered what Mistward was like, full of these people who were both human and fae, and yet neither. It was discouraging to realize that the people of Wendlyn and the present fae had many similarities in their hatred and fear of each other as the ancient fae and Lunarians had five centuries ago. Perhaps it was the naive part of her that thought living on the same continent for centuries and centuries and having so many children between the two races ought to have curbed some of this hate.

"We're here," Elide reported to Asterin that night as they pored over a map she'd gotten a flirty female to sketch for her. The red haired demi-fae had been all too excited to sketch a map for the wide eyed human girl who smiled so sweetly and hung on her every word. Elide almost felt bad for leading her on like that. So many of those she flirted with and deceived were obviously selfish and undesirable individuals who thought she should obviously be in desperate want of their attention. Playing the considerate ones felt cruel.

Asterin narrowed her eyes at the map and pointed to a circle in the far left hand corner, "And this is Mistward."

"Yes," Elide guessed. She thought that's what the female had said but, without the ability to read, she wasn't sure what the demi-fae had scribbled down.

"So your fae is somewhere between here," Asterin gestured to the mountain range that separated the expanse of Maeve's realm from Wendlyn and the tiny demi-fae fort.

"Somewhere in that area," Elide agreed quietly. Lorcan was somewhere in that wilderness: alone, too weak to hunt or defend himself, with wild wolves patrolling the border.

A ghost pain shot down her harm where Fenrys's teeth had severed flesh and shattered bone. Elide broke out into a light sweat. "We need to find him, soon."

Asterin nodded. "I think Nerene will be ready to fly by morning," she promised.

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