And then I heard it. A raw, small exhale with just enough voice that I recognize it instantly.
I turned back to the cot and looked closer at the frail form lying wrapped in a thin blanket. Cheekbones like knives. Lips chapped and split.
“Lesha,” I breathe. Her name tasted like salt in my mouth.
Something in her eyes shifted.
She was alive, thank the gods.
“Lesha, can you hear me?” I whispered, voice cracking.
She blinked slowly, staring through me, then at me as if she had to practice the steps of remembering how to do it.
“Auri,” she whispered like it hurt to speak. Hearing her use my childhood nickname almost broke me.
“Yes.” I bent over her, fingers ghosting over her face, afraid to touch, more afraid not to. “It’s me.”
Rydian’s head snapped to the door. He inhaled, cocking his head, listening. “Two coming.”
“Please,” Lesha begged. It was hardly sound.
“We have you,” I told her, and I meant it with every piece of power in me. “We’re taking you home.”
I slid an arm beneath her shoulders, and the heat of fever scorched my forearm. She’d gone so slight. Rage vented through me like a fault line letting off steam. Furyfire licked through my veins, fully awake, aching to free itself, but I banked it. There would be no wrecking their supplies or scorching their camp.
All that mattered was getting Lesha out.
Rydian appeared at the cot’s far side. He gathered Lesha into his arms with a practice that betrayed how many bodies he’d carried for Autumn over the years. Her lips made a shape that might once have been a protest but now was only breath.
He looked at me. “My shadows will do their best, but the sun will be up soon. You’ll clear our path?”
I nodded, Dorcha already loose in my hand.
We moved. The smell of cauterized flesh followed us all the way to the exit. I held the flap to let them pass then followed them out. The cold night air was both balm and blade. The moon was gone, offering a darkness that was already lightening toward dawn.
A quartet of Obsidian soldiers rounded the medic tent from the left, armor chittering like teeth. The nearest spotted me just as Rydian’s shadows swallowed him up, undoubtedly morphing our faces into something that resembled allies.
The soldier faltered, yawned, and kept walking.
We hurried the other way, but it wasn’t the same path as the one we’d come in on. I had no idea if the twists and turns I was taking now would lead to an exit point or if we’d find ourselves surrounded after each new bend.
Twice, we flattened against the side of carts or tents aspatrols passed. Once, we pressed into the space between a supply cart and a meat rack while an officer checked the hitching posts. Through all of it, Lesha was nothing more than a silent wraith in Rydian’s arms.
At a fork in the path, I held up a fist. Rydian paused. A sentry in a cowl stood with his back to us, head turned toward the central pavilion. Beyond his post, the outskirts of camp gave way to a clear path back into the wilderness of the valley. To our escape.
I switched Dorcha to my other hand and quietly pulled a small blade free from where I’d hidden it in my boot. Rydian didn’t say a word as his shadows pulled and twisted around me, beckoning me forward to do what I must.
Barely breathing, I moved.
One step.
Two.
The knife was in and out of his neck before the sentry realized what had happened. He folded soundlessly. I caught and lowered him, dark blood leaking from his opened throat.
Then we were moving again, low and quick as we ducked behind a line of carts. I could already see the brush beckoning us. The hillside sloping up and away.
A figure stepped from between the last two carts. Not Obsidian. Fae. Gray cloak. Hood pulled low. But I caught sight of the face inside it and froze.
