The general decides against me here, I’m gone.
Just like that.
No warning, no wrongdoing, no nothing.
I wonder if that’s where her mind is. Connie, sitting with her knees hugged to her chest, her sullen face lifting to the warrior who comes down the path.
There’s nothing more than defeat in those ocean eyes of hers—but it strikes me how boldly she aims her stare at the approaching warrior.
I swerve a frown to him.
Behind me, Glass slips off the headstone and her boots are soft on the grass until they stop at my side.
I don’t look at her, not as the warrior keeps his pace down the gravel path to the captives. The firelight rinses out all the blond in his hair, turns it into a sort of peachy shade like mine. But we look nothing alike, not with the faint rusty hue to his complexion, and the blackness of his eyes.
“E-vah-tay.”
I blink once, twice, then turn a questioning frown up at Glass.
Her crystalline eyes flick down her fine nose at me. The thinness of her lips curl with something of a snarled smirk.
“Evate.” She jerks her chin at the warrior advancing on Connie, but her stare doesn’t waver from me. “Mate.”
For a beat, I just frown at her.
Then, slowly, I lower my furrowed stare to the warrior as he passes the guards without even a nod of acknowledgment—
And heads straight for Connie.
My voice croaks, “Mate…”
Connie doesn’t unfold herself from the grass. Her knees are stuck to her chin, arms tight around her shins, and her tired stare traces the warriors slowing advance.
Beside me, Glass lowers to a crouch and rests her forearms on her knees. Her gaze is hooked across the camp at the captives.
“The woman—” Glass pauses to bend her neck, making a hacking sound at the back of her throat, one that sounds too like bones cracking. “—was mate.”
The shock stills me.
For a beat, I just stare at her bent neck, the crassness of it, the openness of finding no shame in her lack of sorrow, and the soft grin on her pale lips.
Then it sinks in.
The one whose neck was broken, Not-Erin, was amate… and so is Connie.
My mind trips, a boot snagged on a rock, and I can feel the creases etching into my face.
The hoarseness of my voice speaks of sobs and screams and the choking grip of the cold one, “What’s a mate?”
Glass straightens her neck and blinks down at me, her brow all creased. “The one.” Her hand, wrapped in the end of my tether, presses to her chest—to her heart-space. “One.”
My mouth parts, then shuts, then parts.
Her hand lowers, eyes glittering as she watches my mind unravel, the creases fading from my face.
Opposite us, through the flames, a feral stare dances with the gleam of the fire. Shark watches us, closely, listening in. But he says nothing.
I should say nothing, too.
