Kai’s blood ran cold.
Every step, every sound dragged her into a waking nightmare. The old memories beat at her skull: the shuffle of feet scraped stone. Males stabbing with brutal precision.
She shook free of those drowning thoughts.
Never again.
Not today.
Not inhermountain.
Usti did this. He’d locked her warriors inside their own arena with poisoned air. The mountain couldn’t fall with Silver Wolf fully intact. But to fully take it, he’d also have to rid them of…
Her stomach rolled.
Surely, he wasn’t desperate enough to slay the entire council of matriarchs. Not every Silver Wolf warrior had been trapped. Dozens were stationed all over the mountain. Many of them would be in this very chamber.
Kai soon discovered those very warriors battling males marked by several clans. It was just as it had been the first time they stood in the hall. Rising Moon had stirred them, but their numbers came from everywhere.
The males attacked indiscriminately, slashing anyone who dared draw close. Their target was beyond an impenetrable barrier of Silver Wolf warriors: elders. Two of them.
Matriarchs.
Just as Kai feared.
The Stormguard surged toward the battle, an arrow piercing the crowdwith battle cries. The floor emptied like a tide pulled from shore, revealing their dead. Usti’s dead.
Her dead.
Kai stumbled over a strong, female body. Silver Wolf tattoo. A sword protruded through her gut.
Another warrior lay beside her, axe buried in her back. Hair matted with blood. A knife limp in her hand?—
Shadi’s blade. A gift.
Niabi White Spirit’s scream of rage tore through the chamber like a thousand blades. She fell to her knees beside the body.
Kai couldn’t feel the ground. The entire world vanished but for that one face. Those glassy, staring eyes.
Sitsi.
Kai choked on her next breath.
How would she tell her parents she’d been too late? That she hadn’t run fast enough? Hadn’t trained their daughter well enough? Hadn’t kept her close enough?
Sitsi had been perfect. Her absence didn’t make sense.
“Please wake up.” Niabi rocked her, smoothing her blood-matted hair. Tears streamed over her cheeks, and her voice was thick. “Come back to me.”
Hot tears pierced the backs of Kai’s eyes, but the swell of rage was much harder to contain. All her pain, all her exhaustion vanished.
Kai roared and drew her sword.
She would kill them all.
The Stormguard crashed against the traitors, an unleashed storm. Kai saw their shock. Recognized their fear. Some stumbled to escape.
They didn’t deserve mercy.
