That flush has climbed to my jaw. “Well.”
But then I don’t know what else to say.
Apparently I don’tneedto say anything else, because Malin straightens, rolling onto his knees. “Iknewit! Silver hell, Sephran owes me ten coppers.”
I snap my head up. “Youbeton it?” I demand.
“When it’s a sure thing, absolutely.”
I cannot believe this. “Wait—buthow? How did you know? We were hardly even together when we traveled.”
“Please. Have you seen the way he looks at you?” Malin’s face goes slack, his eyes widening, his lips parting just a bit—
“Oh, stop it.” I shove him hard enough to knock him over.
He’s laughing, lying in the dirt, and I smile in spite of myself.
But then his laughter cuts short, and he stares up at the darkening sky. “Tycho.” He swears and scrambles for his weapons just as an ice-cold wind whips through our camp to make the fire flicker.
We haven’t seen a scraver in days, but my hand is already on my breastplate.
“Malin!” I snap. “Armor first!”
But his bow is in hand, arrows pinned in his palm. He’s firing at the sky just as an earsplitting screech peals across the small clearing. I’ve thrown my breastplate over my head, but I don’t stop to buckle it. I find the shadow between the trees, wings obscuring the stars. My bow is already in my hand, and I’m shooting, too. I want to tell Malin to stop, that I’ll cover him while he pulls on his own armor, but the scraver’s screech suddenly goes more shrill.
Malin’s eyes go wide. “We hit it!” he cries. “We hit—”
Another shriek cuts him off. The scraver crashes through branches and barely misses our fire when it lands, half in a crouch. The arrow is all the way through one muscled arm, piercing the wing behind, which now hangs crooked. Blood glistens in the firelight, the scraver’s smoky gray skin seeming to absorb the shadows. His chest rises and fallsrapidly, and familiar black eyes flash in my direction. Ice forms on the rocks, melting immediately in the heat from the fire.
Silver hell.
“Magesmith,” says Nakiis, and my hands freeze on my bow.
Malin’s don’t. His next arrow snaps off the string.
“No!” I shout. “Hold!”
But the arrow drives right into Nakiis’s shoulder, tearing into the wing behind. The scraver recoils from the impact, fangs bared. Bitter wind sweeps through the campsite, nearly putting out our fire altogether. The horses spook and pull at their tethers.
Malin already has another arrow nocked, but he hasn’t fired. He’s obeyed my order.
It doesn’t matter. Or maybe it does—in the worst way. Nakiis slams right into him, claws and fangs bared. Malin doesn’t even get a chance to cry out. They go skidding into the dirt, and blood erupts on his tunic as Nakiis’s claws drive into his chest.
Malin never put his armor back on.
If I’m grateful to Grey for anything, it’s years and years of so many drills and so much training that every possible outcome to a fight feels routine—even this one. I’ve got a grip on that impaled wing and a blade against Nakiis’s throat before panic has even occurred to me.
“Let him go,” I snap.
Nakiis does—but he turns on me. He’s quick, but I have a grip on his injured wing, and it gives me leverage. Once he’s off balance, I’m able to throw him to the ground. I pin him with a knee on his chest and my sword against his neck, and then I look over at Malin.
The soldier is half crumpled on his side. Blood iseverywhere: in a spray across his tunic, in a slick across his jaw, in wide streaks in the dirt. He’s not moving.
I look back down at Nakiis, and it takes everything I have not to endhim right here. Ice crawls up the length of my blade, and it seems the feeling is rather mutual.
“You made a vow to me, magesmith,” he growls. “Is this how you keep your promises?”
“You attackedus!”
