Taron.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
His attention flicked to Lesha. “You found her.”
Rydian snarled softly. “Eirnan sent you?”
The Withered’s gaze ticked to me, to the shadows, to the way Rydian held Lesha like breakable glass. Something ugly curled at the corner of his mouth in a shape that had nothing to do with triumph. “I don’t serve Eirnan.”
His words sent a shudder through me.
“Move,” I told him softly.
For a breath, he only stared at me, the gaunt, hollow look in his eye now filled with something deep and treacherous. Then he stepped aside.
I didn’t turn my back on him as we passed. Rydian didn’t either. When we were clear of him, I marked the most direct line to take us back up to the cave’s entrance.
From around the brush, two Obsidian soldiers appeared. Rydian’s shadows coated us and, for a breath, the soldiers’ helmets angled as if they accepted us as part of the retreating night.
Then one straightened. “Identify.”
My hand tightened around Dorcha.
The Obsidian’s neck broke backward like a reed in winter wind. Rydian’s shadows went through the second helmet as gently as smoke and retreated in a mist of darkened blood.
My sword hung at my side as I stared at Rydian. His stoic expression was unwavering as his stormy eyes met mine.
The thing nightmares fear.
I’d never realized what he was truly capable of. What my father had gifted him when he’d vowed to protect me. But there was no time to process it now.
“Come,” he said, and we resumed our retreat.
Above us, the sky was lightening. Rydian’s shadows would be no use now.
The stream was just ahead. A thin ribbon of murky water between us and the path that led to the caves. The current was slow, the bank on the far side a dark smear. Beyond that, a stand of bracken. Good cover for our ascent straight up to the cave’s mouth.
“Almost there,” I urged.
If we jumped, we could make it without getting our boots wet.
The sound was small. A single whistle—threerising notes—carrying from the high ridge. A scout’s signal. One of ours. Except it wasn’t.
My gut dropped.
“Rydian.”
He’d already whipped his head to the ridge. A figure stood there, barely a silhouette against moonlight. Gray cloak. Hood low. Withered.
He should have been signaling our teams’ safe return—one whistle for Slade’s team, two whistles for Daegel’s, three for Rydian and me. Instead, the three short whistles were followed by a lantern being lifted in his hand. The shutters flew back. Light spilled wild and bright in the graying morning.
He swung it overhead.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
