Aurelia lifted her gaze from the map. “Slade, you and Thorne shadow-walk to the center tent. Just in case Lesha is there.”
“And if Heliconia is inside?” Slade asked.
Aurelia hesitated, and I could see the indecision weighing on her.
I cleared my throat. “Then you get the Hel out of there. We can’t afford a direct altercation. Not until Lesha is safe.”
He nodded.
Aurelia didn’t argue.
“Daegel, take Keres and a small contingent to the barracks on the outskirts,” I told them. “Once you secure the Aine, dowhat you can against their communications tent, but the priority is getting everyone out safely.”
“Will do,” Daegel said.
Keres studied Aurelia. “You sure?” Keres asked her.
Aurelia nodded. “I’m sure. If Lesha’s there…”
“We’ll get her out,” Keres finished for her.
Aurelia looked at me, swallowing hard, and I knew it was killing her not to be the one rescuing her friend. But I saw it now—what she intended.
“I’m going with you,” I said.
She nodded. “All right.”
“We all meet back at the cave entrance,” I said, though the words tasted wrong. Setting our rendezvous point implied we’d all live long enough to get there.
The others moved off and began preparing—checking blades, restringing bows, murmuring in low voices that didn’t quite mask their nerves.
Eirnan lingered near me. “They’re scared,” he said quietly.
“They should be.”
He gave a tired half-smile. “So are you.”
I didn’t deny it.
The truth was, I wasn’t sure what I feared more—the Obsidian soldiers we’d face or the discord in our own ranks. The Withered had been fractured too long, their loyalty cracked and patched over by desperation. The argument yesterday still echoed in the camp’s whispers. Even now, I could feel their unease pressing at the edges of their resolve.
They would fight, yes. But would they hold the line when Obsidians came for us in legions? When it was their lives or Aurelia’s?
I’d seen what happened to armies that didn’t.
Aurelia must have felt it too. I found her still sitting in the dirt, staring at the map Eirnan had drawn. Her power hummed faintly under her skin, leaking through the cracks ofher restraint. It had been doing that for days now, though she hadn’t brought it up.
I sat beside her. “You should rest.”
She didn’t look at me. “Plenty of time for that when I’m in my father’s kingdom.”
Hel. The afterlife.
I exhaled through my nose. “We’ve been through worse.”
“Have we?” she asked softly.
I didn’t answer, but I thought of that rooftop seven years ago. The crack and boom of world-ending magic. The sick belief that she’d been killed.
