“You’re right,” I said tersely. “We’ll take them home at once.” I glanced down at my four recruits, not really seeing them. My heart was pounding so hard I thought I might be sick. My feet were throbbingfrom minor burns sustained while running through those fiery hallways.I will need a poultice, I thought automatically.
“Hold on to me,” I muttered to the recruits. “The greenway will be a rough passage.”
As soon as I felt their little fists tighten around my feathers, I launched into the air, Caralind just behind me. The other teams would secure what was left of Graystone, save whoever they could from Two Bluffs and Oakvale. The nymph child’s corpse would burn or rot.
I didn’t look back once.
Chapter 4
The Warden called me into her office a few hours after we returned to Rosewarren.
Nesset brought me the message this time. I was helping our healers tend to the human refugees the other squadrons had rescued from Two Bluffs and Oakvale. The earthquakes, the storms, and the onslaught of Olden hostiles—chimaera, specters, a trio of furiants that had used their power to hurl boulders as big as houses—had left the towns in ruins. Dozens were dead, many of the survivors were severely wounded, and we’d lost two Roses from our rescue squadrons—two littles Danesh had been training for the past eight months. The ten Roses who’d been stationed at Graystone were dead. The eight recruits Caralind and I had saved were the outpost’s only survivors.
Nesset came to me in somber silence. The infirmary reeked of blood, and one of the dead littles had been a favorite of Nesset’s—Gertrid, a wiry northern girl with a talent for spear-throwing.
“The Warden wants to see you,” Nesset said quietly. Her dark eyes were clouded from crying. Her rough gray-brown skin, sewn together with flowers and moss, looked patchy and raw, as if something hadscraped layers of bark off a gnarled tree. Maybe Nesset herself had done it.
I looked away. I couldn’t see the Vilia without thinking of Gemma, who had saved her from her abusive revenant masters. How fiercely Nesset loved my baby sister. If Gemma died, would she peel off every scrap of her skin to show her grief? Would I do the same?
I took the Warden’s summons from Nesset, crumpled the square of paper in my fist, and strode away from her, ignoring the curious gazes that followed me as I passed through the crowded rooms. By the time I knocked on the Warden’s office door, my mind was clear, my throat paved with stone.
I stood before her desk with my hands behind my back, staring straight ahead—past her, past the wall, past the priory and the Mist. I imagined nothingness. I was a blade, polished and ready, waiting for the breach bells to ring.
The Warden watched me for a long moment. “Caralind told me what happened at Graystone,” she said at last.
That was all it took to sweep away my calm and rake me open. Petra’s dead face flashed before my eyes. Then it became the face of the dead nymph child, golden and stained with ashes. I gritted my teeth, clasped my hands together more tightly.
“Yes, Madam.”
“Her report was startling, to say the least.”
“Yes, Madam.”
“She has been punished, of course, and will continue to be, for going against your orders. If she had followed them, our two recruits would still be with us.”
Another image: two terrified little girls running toward me, reaching for me, their faces dissolving into ashes right before my eyes.
I nodded briskly. “Yes, Madam.”
Silence fell, and then the Warden sighed. “Mara, look at me.”
I obeyed, keeping my expression carefully blank.
“My brave, strong girl.” Her face was full of pity. “Caralind said you carried the child’s corpse out of Graystone. Why? She was dead.”
My surprise rattled me. Foolishly, I hadn’t expected the question, but of course Caralind had told her this detail too. I’d held a dead child’s body in my arms without realizing it. I’d looked at her face and seen Petra’s. I was sure I’d said Petra’s name aloud. I must have looked like a madwoman, covered in ashes and staring down at the ghost of a girl I’d killed twelve years ago. Surely Caralind had heard the tale of my trials. Even Roses liked a good scary story.
“I’m not certain, Madam.” I resisted the urge to scratch an itch on my left temple. “I can only assume I was in a state of shock. The two recruits, the way they died…” My voice caught. Suddenly, in my memory, each of the two recruits was Petra, and it was her face dissolving into ashes, her screams of agony snuffed out like candles.
I shook my head, looked down at my boots, cleared my throat. “They made me think of Petra. I was caught quite off guard.”
I don’t know why I confessed such a thing, but once I said it, I couldn’t take it back. I stood there, tense and miserable, until the Warden sat back in her chair with a little hum of concern.
“For the next two days, you’ll be off duty,” she said after a moment.
I jerked my head up to stare at her. “No, Madam, please—”
“I’ve made my decision, Mara. For the next two days, you will rest, you will eat, and nothing more. No training, no patrols.”
