You will be alone again, without him, without Soahm.
You are nothing, and no one, just as your mother once said.
Sonara glanced at the dark cave mouth.
She could run,right now.She could climb onto Duran’s back, where he waited safe and sound outside the tunnels, and be away from here in an instant, a speck of dust carried away by the wind. For one moment, she imagined it. Allowed herself to close her eyes andseeit. Perhaps that was true freedom, being alone, with no one to tie herself to.
But when she imagined it, all she saw was Jaxon’s bloody hands reaching down to help her up, ten years ago, when he’d found her dying on the cracked ground. His smile, as he oversaw her plucking her first purse from a noble’s pocket. His encouraging words, as he stood beside her and taught her how to release an arrow from a bow with enough accuracy to hit a fowl mid-flight. She saw herself teaching him how to wield a warrior’s sword, using the same steps Soahm had once taught her. She saw him standing before a mirror as she taught him how to dress like a Lady’s guard, how to speak like a noble, and how to get a steed to listen when the beast flattened its ears and pranced in disdain.
Sonara looked carefully at the group around her. A princess, a cleric wearing a wolf’s skull, and a smooth criminal wearing a Trickster’s grin. They weren’t much. But they were something.
And she herself was the Devil of the Deadlands. Devils didn’t run from fear. They created it. They shaped it into a weapon to use against whoever dared stand in their way.
And therehadto be a way to break through that light barrier.There had to be a way to save Jaxon from the monsters on that ship, to get them to leave this place for good. Sonara sighed.
“Then we will save them,” she said.
“Oh, stars above… Sonara, I see the look in your eyes, and I don’t like it,” Markam ran his hands over his face in disdain. “We’re a few people. We have no resources, no army, nochance.”
“There’s always a chance,” Sonara growled. “Jaxon is your family. He’s… he’smyfamily.”
She shocked even herself by using the word.
“What good can we do against an army of Wanderers?” he asked. “What good can we do against their weapons?”
That pleading tone, the truth of his words. It made Sonara’s insides curl.
“Just help me,” Sonara said. “For once, help me, without a deal or a prize on the other side. That’s all I’m asking of you. Just help me find a way to free them.”
Silence, as Markam stared at her.
It was Thali who finally spoke. “The Great Mother has tied us all to this.” Her voice was so strangely out of place, so youthful and bright in the darkness of the moment. “For whatever reason, we are all bound to this place. I will stand with you. I will help you.”
“And I,” Azariah said, lifting her chin. “I will fight to free my people and stop my father.”
Perhaps it had been her plan all along, to get Sonara and Markam here, to see the horror of what lay before them, with the king and the Wanderer’s plan. But Sonara didn’t care.
“Then we start from the beginning, as we always do,” she said.
She turned to look at Markam, who’d been watching the entire moment unfold with what looked like an ever-building sigh.
“Intel first. You’re up, Trickster. And if you walk away from this, away from Jaxon…”
“I know, Sunny,” he said, and got to his feet, swiping the dust from his pants. He adjusted the hat back on his head, settling it just so. “If I screw this up, you’ll make me regret the day I was reborn.”
“No,” Sonara said, surprising him. She smiled sweetly. “I’ll tie you up and hand you to Azariah instead, and I’ll enjoy watching as she tears you apart, limb from limb.”
“Spyglass,” Markam said.
Sonara looked to her right, where he was sprawled on his stomach beside her on a rocky overhang of the Bloodhorn Mountains, his face shadowed beneath the wide leather brim of his hat. The suns hovered overhead; high noon.
Sweat dripped down Sonara’s temples as she lay there, the heat sweltering beneath the duster spread over her back, the better to help her blend in with the rocks.
Jaxon’s hat was on her own head, blocking the sun from her eyes.
She was grateful he’d given it to her at the Gathering, but she also didn’t deserve the comfort of it, when he was down there,trapped.So close, but untouchable.
“We’ve been here for hours.” Sonara passed Markam her salamander glass. He frowned and wiped her sweat from the copper. “They’re juststandingthere, Markam. Why don’t they fight? Why don’t they do something?”
