There were only a few recruits left standing. He scanned their faces, one by one, his hand clenched over his cane...
But she wasn’t among them.
So, he focused, with a hammering heart, upon the dead.
Kinlear paused to kneel before a man who lookedalmostalive. “Where’s my dear brother?” he asked over a shoulder.
Riven closed his eyes and breathed deep, pulling at his Ehvermage magic. “Nearby. Heading this way from the west, just up the hill. And... there’s another with him.”
“Redguard?” Indriya asked. “He was the only Sacred to travel south with this lot.”
“Hard to tell who he’s with,” Riven said. “So much blood marking the wind.”
“Losing your touch, War Bear?” Kinlear asked, as he used his cane to prod the victim that was face-down at his feet.
Very muchdead,judging by the squelch of blood.
He grimaced and moved on to the next. Not that he could do anything of worth to save someone on the brink of death. He could inscribe a Healing rune, at least, until they could get them to the Citadel.
Body after body, he checked for her.
Not here,he thought, and his shoulders sagged in relief. A cough left his lips. He’d need to go, as soon as they found Arawn.
“Therehe is,” Indriya said.
Arawn came walking down the hillside, a prisoner beside him. So small, she could have been a child. It was nearly dark now, the snow blurring his form.
Kinlear knelt, turning his back on his brother.
His heart was suddenly in his throat.
He shouldn’t have come. He feltweakwhen he was near Arawn.
Arawn, splattered in black blood, broad and tall andgods be damned,still looking like the king he’d soon be.
Kinlear was nothing close to that.
Not in his waking moment, at least. He held back a cough as he tested another victim’s neck for a pulse. And then he wondered how he’d get out of here without looking like a child who’d snuck away from their father’s castle, instead of how he wanted to look.
Fierce.
Bold.
Unbroken.
He stiffened when Arawn’s footsteps approached, and then that voice he knew all too well called his name.
“Kinlear!”
He sighed, forced his weakness away, and stood, wiping the snow from his trousers as he turned to face him.
And then every part of him froze. He felt like he was floating, or perhaps he wasfalling...
Because the person at his brother’s side...
The one who stood with her chin high and her scars all bold and beautiful and so veryperfectas to mark her as a survivor of something just like this...
It washer.
