Nash makes a choking sound.
“That can't be,” I say, trying to not let myself be distracted to go help Nash. There’s nothing I could do for him right now anyway except try to find his captor. “He has to be there. Has to.”
“I'm sorry. It's all my fault,” Eldim says. “He wasn't there when I arrived, but if I’d gotten here sooner, I might have caught him.”
“What about the guards down there and those I sent before?”
“I found them tied up, unconscious.”
Is one of them Ranen’s man pretending to be captured to stay close to me? I can’t trust anyone except a few of my close guards. Maybe. “Did you wake them? Did they know anything?”
“Not a thing. The guards you sent said Ranen was in his cell when they arrived. Next thing they knew, they were being woken by me, with a giant headache.”
Fabulous. “What do we do now?” I can't have another criminal on the loose. It's not happening.
I turn around and go right back outside, facing the eighty or so soldiers still hanging around. “Ranen, the old Head Advisor, has gone missing. I want him found and brought to me as soon as possible.” When they stare at me, I yell, “Now.”
The guards turn back to where they came from, Afet going along and giving them orders. It's likely they'll have just as much luck finding him as they have Daros. This is horrible. I can't believe the predicament.
“Nash, let’s go to my rooms. You’re rooms aren’t secured, and the healer will come see you there.” Mostly, I want to be with him. Especially with Ranen on the loose, I can't trust Nash to go to the barracks to be seen by a healer.
Wilric and Afet help him to my rooms, where Nash insists he's fine in a chair in the sitting room instead of going to my bedroom where he can lie down. “It wouldn't be proper,” he says.
“Like I care for such things.”
He gives me a faint smile, but says nothing further.
Wilric and Afet leave the room, presumably to stand guard outside.
“What happened?” I ask. “How did they capture you?”
“As easily as I snuck into your rooms.” Ranen and several burly guards come out from my bedroom, one with a bow pointed directly at Nash.