When Dyna had revealed that Von was the sixth Guardian, he didn’t want to believe it. He would have preferred it to have been Klyde. A familiar face seeking revenge? The captain fit the mark.
Why would Von join them when he still served Tarn?
Dyna avoided his gaze. “I know he’s done wrong against us … but it's only because he had to. Von is meant to join us.”
It stung Zev a little that she would decide that without discussing it with him first.
“And how do you plan to take him away from Tarn?” Lucenna asked her next. “We don’t even know where they are.”
Dyna was quiet for a pause. “Our paths will cross again.”
The conversation ended as the mercenaries gathered for their evening meal. They ate stale bread and dried meat.
Discreetly traveling the Bridge would only get them so far.
That night, Zev took first watch with Klyde. He remained on constant alert, sniffing the air for that telltale troll stench. But all he heard was the whisper of the breeze and the chatter of nature among the steady heartbeats slowing as the others fell asleep.
But one stayed awake.
Dyna’s eyes shone in the moonlight as she stared blankly at the leaves above them, lost in thought.
Was it the darkness that kept her awake?
Was ithisabsence? She never cried for Cassiel again after that day in the courtyard.
Zev thought it was because Dyna had moved on, but there were five facets of grief. And he remembered exactly which one he had fallen into before he went mad.
CHAPTER 10
Dynalya
Something lurked in the trees.
It had been hunting them since they left Skelling Rise.
Dyna lay still on her bed mat, staring at the canopy above her. Their stalker was so quiet, she sometimes didn’t know where they were until a branch faintly creaked. They were skilled at hiding, though, for not even Zev and Rawn had noticed them yet.
But she knew they were there.
The sky rumbled with a coming storm as the night wore on until the sky lightened with the beginning of dawn. A light drizzle of rain fell, pattering on the leaves. Lightning flashed in the distance, exposing a faint shadow passing overhead among the branches. It was so quick, she nearly missed it. Her heart hammered wildly in her chest.
She heard it.
The flutter of wings.
Rawn eventually took his rest when it was Lucenna’s turn to take watch. She joined a mercenary named Alasdair on the perimeter, a polite bulky man with unruly brown hair. Dyna waited until they were distracted before quietly standing and slipping away in the direction the shadow went.
They had trained her in many things over the winter, and learning how to move soundlessly was one of them. The rain picked up, cloaking her rapid steps further.
With each strike of lightning, the canopy lit up, helping Dyna search for her stalker. A winged silhouette flew past with a rustle of feathers. Then she was running.
Was it...?
It had to be.
She could almost smell it. That divine scent that belonged only to their kind. Her boots splashed through a puddle, and in the center of it floated a black feather. The sight of it sent her heart leaping into her throat, her chest rising and falling sharply with shallow breaths. Something in her chest rose past the poisonous anger. Past the fog of exhaustion.
Something she didn’t want to give name to.
