Revenge was going to have to wait.
"Come on, Joule. Help me carry him. We need to get him to Quillon."
Joule moved to obey, reaching for Wren's shoulders.
Wren pushed him away. "No, you need to go after him."
His breathing was labored, and his skin waxen. He looked inches from death—which was where he'd be if they didn't act now.
"Later," Kira said. "You'll die otherwise."
"Stubborn, like all of your family," Wren forced out.
"Complain to someone who sees that as an insult."
His laugh was small and pain-filled before his gaze found Joule's. "Find Graydon. Warn him they're after Devon."
Kira pressed hard against Wren's wound, her mind racing as she put together the pieces. Graydon remaining with Roake even after his duty was done. Wren's concern over Devon. There were only a few reasons she could think of for something like that.
Wren's expression was determined as he focused on her. "He's important. You have to protect him. He’s privy to things that if they fell into the wrong hands would devastate the Tuann."
If her new suspicions were right, that was an understatement.
Kira closed her eyes. This right here was why she never wanted to lead again. Difficult decisions with no right answer.
"Can you find your way out?" she asked Joule.
Chances were Aeron didn't come by way of the same path Kira and Wren had taken. He wouldn't have needed to with Loudon as his co-conspirator. The Roakeherald would have known how to get in and out. Probably even opened the way for him.
Joule might be able to take advantage of that.
He hesitated. "You're going to need my help."
Her chuckle was strained. "Almost certainly, but I need you to get Graydon more. If I fail, he'll pick up the pieces. Last lesson—always hedge your bets."
The struggle to obey warred with his need to help. She hated to ask this of him. She knew how difficult it was to abandon the battlefield when people you'd sworn to serve beside still fought. However, it was sometimes the only way to victory.
Something broke in Joule's expression—the innocent romanticism of being a warrior crumpled and fell by the wayside. What emerged was someone stronger, if a little more bruised.
He rose. "Don't you dare die."
He was gone before she had the chance to make promises she didn't know if she could keep.
"He will make a fine leader one day," Wren said, his face a mask of pain.
"Yeah, he will." It didn't make Kira any happier to be the one to teach him that lesson.
Wren moaned, his eyes slipping shut as unconsciousness beckoned. "Go. Don't worry about me. I will see my daughter soon."
Time was ticking away, but there was one last thing she had to do before she left. It was a long shot at best. Likely it wouldn't work, and if it did, it would bring nothing but trouble.
Kira left his side, crossing to Jin's spawn. She picked up its lifeless body. "Jin, you there?"
No response came. She sent her senses into the inanimate object. The spark that was Jin was absent. Whatever defense he'd built into the lizard had destroyed its connection to him.
Judging by the silence in her comms, his signal couldn't reach her here.
Kira returned to Wren, kneeling at his side. His breathing was labored as he watched her.
