Ella’s mouth fell open. “No.”
“He looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘You were about to piss on my head.’ Scared the shit out of me.”
Ella burst into laughter, full and unrestrained.
Jakobav’s mouth tugged into a reluctant smile. “Haven’t trusted a tree since.”
“And the animals?” she asked.
Jakobav’s mouth twitched again. “They know a predator when they sense one. Soren can feel every creature within a certain radius. When he hunts, he doesn’t need weapons. He is the weapon.”
A chill slipped down her spine. “Remind me not to upset him.”
“Good instinct.”
She hesitated. “And Savina? I know she’s third in command.”
Jakobav’s smile vanished. “Pray you never have to see what Savina can do.”
He said nothing more, and Ella didn’t press. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
23
BLOOD THAT BINDS
The full moon rode high above the canopy, its silver glow bouncing off the leaves as bright fragments of light peeked through the branches and lit up the clearing. Sleep unraveled around Ella in broken segments, tugged apart by the certainty that something was amiss, the kind of wrong that prickled against the skin long before the ear caught it.
A twig snapped in the distance, sharp and sudden. Another followed, closer.
She jerked upright, lungs tight, but Jakobav was already moving, soundless as a whisper swallowed by night. Imminent violence was written all over his face, visible even in the moonlight. He dropped low beside her, one hand tightly wrapped around the hilt of his sword while the other pressed flat to the ground, as though listening through the earth. His hushed warning cut through the silence. “Do not speak. Do not move. They’re already here.”
Ella’s hand darted beneath the bedroll until her fingers closed on Thane’s dagger, and gods, she was grateful she’d stolen it. Three emeralds glimmered along the hilt, deep and polished, each perfectly set in the body of a serpent coiled in eternalstrike. Its citrine eyes caught what little light touched them, burning with a predatory gleam. It settled against her palm, the balance unnervingly perfect, as if the blade had been waiting for her hand, the rush of strength that coursed through her veins leaving her both unsteady and unwilling to let go.
Shapes bled out of the trees, one by one, until she counted eight, maybe nine. Their faces were hidden behind cloth masks, only their eyes glinting in the moonlight. As they got closer, she saw that their clothes hung torn and filthy, seams split, fabric stiff with dried blood while fresher streaks darkened their sleeves. They looked like men who’d already been broken elsewhere and had crawled out of ruin in search of easier prey.
They had chosen wrong.
Jakobav rose, his movements slow and intentional, his shoulders squaring as if some ancient inheritance stirred awake inside him. He didn’t reach for words. His presence was its own warning.
Ella’s gaze swept across the intruders, her voice little more than breath. “They don’t look Dravaryn.”
Jakobav didn’t answer.
His jaw tightened, a small ripple of muscle betraying that he already knew.
She wondered how he could tell—how he always could—as if the truth reached him without sight or sound, sensed in a way that defied explanation. She wanted to demand answers, to ask if it was the same instinct that told him she was from Orchid the night they met.
But this wasn’t the moment.
“Stay hidden,” he murmured, the command barely a breath.
Before she could respond, he rose from their crouched position behind the boulder and stepped into the clearing with a predator’s calm.
One of the masked men moved ahead of the others, shoulders squared, every step carrying the command of authority. The rest held back, a subtle deference that marked him as their leader even before the first trace of sorcery touched the air.
He hesitated, his stance rigid, eyes narrowing beneath the mask as his form wavered—a second figure peeled away from him, and then a third—until three versions of the same man stood in the clearing where only one had been. Each moved with the barest fraction of difference, almost imperceptible, yet enough to set her nerves on edge and tilt the world slightly askew.
Ella’s stomach hollowed.
