RISING (#2, of Crows and Thorns)

Chapter 58

Osborne-Oswaine dragged in a breath and then expelled the words in a frantic rush. "Mr. Crowther, Master Sirro wants to see you immediately!"

Hellsgate!

I spun around and surged forward through the kitchen and down the hallway, throwing my senses outward to hunt down Sirro. I rounded a corner and a nightmarish squall of darkness swept toward me. Magic blustered down the hallway like savage stormwinds blowing through a derelict house. Heedless, I ran right into Sirro's ferocious power. It whipped through my long hair and raked against my skin with tiny teeth as if it was tasting me, and I followed it right back to its source—Sirro.

When I had entered the mansion heading for the kitchen, the hallways had been choked with the Deniauds' servants, busily moving in and out of the house, assisting with the clean-up after Jurgana's devastation or organizing the heirs and surviving guests as convoys arrived to transport them back to their Houses. Now, they had stopped in their tracks and lined the hallway walls, frozen in silent bows as Sirro stalked through their ranks. He didn't even give them a second glance.

The Horned God's magic lightened from inky darkness to silvery strands as he strode purposefully down the marbled hallway within the heart of his storm. Deep grooves of anger lined Sirro's ageless face as his fierce gaze clashed with mine. I'd seen the Horned God enraged before but this was something else. His teeth flashed almost like fangs as he snapped, "Varen, with me!"

His immense power hummed a lethal note as it arched and whorled, crept along the walls and through open archways, the otherworldly threads spearing out as if they were searching for someone or something.

My mind whirled back to what Sirro had shared with me in the early hours of the morning, that he'd felt something when he'd first arrived and had begun to hunt it.

He pivoted around smoothly and I fell in beside him.

We made our way through the hallways at a clipped pace. The sun was beginning to rise and the sky was streaked with pastel colors—violets and pinks and dusky blues—as we stepped outside through a servants' entranceway. We crunched across the pebbled path and servants stepped aside to let us pass, bowing as we strode by.

I chanced a sideways peek to find Sirro focused dead ahead with a glint of a blade in his narrowed golden eyes. While we walked I tried to work out what was going on, why the hells Sirro needed me. My senses were on high alert as well as my nerves. I was on edge and the air licking my exposed skin was chilled as if it heralded oncoming sleet.

Set a little further away was an elaborate garden that curved around the lawns and along the western side of the mansion. The gardeners had made their creation of a wild unrestrained garden, with trees, flaxes, and wildflowers, seem effortless and inviting.

Just before we reached the faux tower that rounded the chateau-esque mansion, Sirro marched off the path and onto the dewy grass, heading straight toward a spot beneath a tree, its wide-spread boughs shading the flaxes and lavender that surrounded it.

Sirro came to a halt. His power coiled around him and his Familiar too. He shot me a sharp look but didn't say anything.

I threw out my senses, easily noting Sirro's scent as I glanced around. Blades of grass had been crushed beneath the soles of shoes. Two—Sirro, and someone else, a smaller footprint. Whoever it was had stumbled backward right into the garden. Several flax leaves were bent, with sap oozing from the creases, and a rain of fresh autumnal leaves was scattered on the verdant ground beneath the tree.

Judging by the loose black fibers hooked into the tree trunk's rough bark, whoever it was had been pinned there by Sirro. My breath almost left me in a whoosh when I recognized the scent floating on the air—wild roses—Tabitha. My nostrils flared. Cold vicious anger poured through my body. What the fuck had Sirro been doing to Tabitha?