We lapsed into silence as we trudged back to our camp by the stream.
As we neared it, the hair on the back of my neck lifted. I stopped. Maz did, too.
The stream trickled peacefully by. Nothing but wind shifted the grasses along the bank. All was dark and quiet.
That was when it struck me. We hadn’t seen any patrols on our way back. We’d snuck around one on our way in, but not on our way out.
I silently unsheathed my sunstone knife. Maz did the same. We crouched in the tall grass and slid into the stream. The water rushed around my boots as I took careful steps, never splashing.
A horse snorted on the other bank. I froze, waiting for a shout or an arrow to strike my chest armor. Nothing.
I eased up the other bank and crawled through the bushes. Two horses, one pale, one dark as night, turned toward me.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Wicked and Valiant. They were still here. But where were the others?
“Do you think the border patrol took them?” Maz murmured, turning in a circle.
My gaze landed on a discarded sword next to a crumpled body. My mind blanked. I seized the body and turned it over. A soldier.
“Not without a fight. And why leave our horses?” I swallowed hard. “Search for other bodies.”
We combed through the brush but found no one else. Only the packhorse we’d taken. I left him untethered and happily grazing.
“Perhaps they were ambushed and headed for the gap back to Yargoth, like you told them to,” Maz said hopefully.
I shook my head, studying the bent grass and tracks in the soft dirt. “Hoofprints go northwest. Farther into Winspere.”
“Gods damn it,” Maz growled. “Perhaps we would all actually survive if any of us could follow a fucking plan.”
I didn’t have the strength, or even the desire, to argue with him. My plans had never worked, anyway. Why would they now?
“What’s that?” Maz asked, pointing his knife at a shadow streaking toward us through the grass.
I recognized that shadow. I watched for it every night.
I rushed forward and caught Kiera as she flung herself into my arms.
“You’re alive,” she whispered over and over in a choked voice. “You’re alive.”
I held her tightly, afraid to speak. Gods, she felt like a dream. Until something wet and warm trickled onto my cheek where it was pressed into her neck. The coppery scent of blood filled my nostrils.
I drew back and tugged her chin to the side, exposing her neck. The silver light glinted on a cut in her neck.
It seemed I would single-handedly be filling the Abyss tonight.
“Kiera,” I said in a deep, deadly calm voice. “Who did this to you?”
Her throat pulsed beneath my fingertips. “He’s dead.”
I pulled her chin back until her gaze met mine. “He’d better be.”
“Where are the others?” Maz demanded. “What happened?”
She slid out of my grip before I was ready to let her go. “Border patrol from the woods ambushed us when we came back. We got away, but they want revenge for the other patrol. They’ve been pursuing us. Nikella took us to a Winspere estate she knows. Sigrid, Yarina, and I circled back for you two.” She paused from her rapid speech to take a breath. “But they’re still looking for us. We need to go. Now.”
Maz and I slid on our masks and grabbed our horses.
Kiera swung up behind me before I could offer. She pointed at the distant tree line to the north. “Yarina and Sigrid are waiting for us in there.”
