Chapter 91

Caspian only managed a few fitful hours of sleep after sunrise. When he returned to the outcrop at dawn, he had been greeted with the news that the den mother was hovering between life and death, poisoned by Netya, who had been missing for hours.

He refused to believe it.

Had Khelt not insisted on him resting, he would have headed straight back out to search for her, despite his exhaustion. He even fancied he could smell her sweet scent lingering there in his lodge as he tossed and turned, and it tormented him until he could stand it no longer.

Rising from his furs, he fastened his belt and slid his arms into a loose hide jerkin, then strode outside to look in on the den mother. The breaking of any serious news would have awoken him already, but he checked with the others to see if there had been any word of Netya. There was still no sign of her, and none of the hunters sent out to search had returned.

When he made his way to the seers’ cave, however, he was