The entire thing depresses me. Jinneth missing, Vallan missing, both with heartbreaking impacts on our group if the situations turn for the worst.
As we reach the lower level of the manor, stomping down the hall toward the cells, Garroway instinctively slashes his arm in front of us, barring our movement.
Our eyes whip over to find him with faraway eyes and a creased brow.
“What is it, cub?” Skar asks.
“Trouble on the outskirts, Master. Just outside toward the eastern woods.”
My heart thumps and jumps to the hollow of my throat. All has been quiet in the three evenings since we returned from our missions, painfully waiting for something to happen. Now it seems to be.
“Good trouble or bad trouble?” I quip.
Skar scoffs. “In what world is trouble evergood—”
“Vallan is good trouble, you ask me,” I snipe back.
That shuts Skar up. He tilts his head at Garro, waiting.
Over recent nights, Garroway has become attuned to his power enough to bounce between critters in the fields and woods—seeing out from their eyes—without needing to be locked in a full-on trance. If he wants toorderthe beasts to do something, such as move their bodies or spy on a particular soul, he has to concentrate fully. But this passive level of scouting from the eyes of creatures close to our borders has been incredibly useful from a tactical, defensive point of view.
“It’s a figure,” he explains. “Shadowed by the trees, though I can’t tell who—no. It’stwopeople. One of them slumping along.”
Curious and heart-hammered, I share a confused glance with Skartovius.
“Then let us greet our troublesome guests,” Skar says, and draws his steel.
I’ve noticed Skartovius hasn’t had his silver saber hanging from his hip over the past few days. I haven’t had time to think much about what that might mean.
We stalk through the tree line, melding into the woods like specters, swords drawn. Our eyes dance in every direction, scanning for danger. We’re not going to be caught unawares after everything that’s happened.
Skar takes the point. Garro and I fan out to the left and right, stepping over gnarled roots and overturned trunks.
A scuttling sound, followed oddly by a groan, comes in from my right. “Over here,” I hiss to my mates, who hurry over under the moonless canopies. I raise my swords. “Show yourself!”
“Little grimmer,” comes an achingly familiar voice.
Only one man calls me that.
“Lukain?” I say hopefully, and then steel my mind against the hope. “Ohfuckno. Where are you, bastard?”
He appears from behind a tree. Tall, broad-shouldered, and intimidating. I can’t see much from how dark it is, though there doesn’t seem to be a weapon in his hands.
That doesn’t stop me from growling at him, ready to charge—
When a second, rounder figure limps into my sight behind him, holding onto his shoulder for stability.
A gasp rips through me. “Mother?!”
“H-Hello, dear,” Jinneth murmurs in a pained tone.
Once Skar and Garro are at my side, I rush over, sheathing my swords. Lukain steps back to let my mother pass into my arms. I embrace her fully, not caring about her ripe stench or the tattered state of her clothing.
I only notice the stump of her left wrist when she tightens her hold against me, thumping against my back.
“By all that’s True, what the fuck happened to you?!” I wail, pulling her back. Jinneth’s face is bruised, yellow and purple and sickly. She’s been tortured, and her fuckinghandis missing.
Despite all the evident pain stretching across her features, the resilient woman gives me a small smile. “Your half-blood menace saved me, daughter. Turns out they’re not all as evil as I thought they were.”
