She ran, feet pounding, as he flung himself at her knees, choking blood that stained her pants.
“Warden—” he coughed, black froth splattering across her skin. “The village—” He forced the words up between spasms. “A second force…nearly there.” Tears cut clean tracks down his gray cheeks. “My little brother. My grandfather. Please—”
Mira sank with him, knees crashing to the rock, one palm on either bloody cheek, and for a second the commander’s mask broke.
“Where is the damned healer?” she demanded, voice shredded with a kind of fury that only came from command, and from knowing he was already dead.
Rynna’s stomach lurched, bile burning the back of her throat. Death didn’t normally affect her, but there was something…
Her gaze locked on the boy’s slack face, and the world tilted until only his last words echoed in her skull.
“A second…” Panic sank in her belly as the meaning hit. The children.
All of the children were in the village. It was like a blade had pierced her heart.
“Let me go,” Rynna snapped.
“Wait.” Mira’s voice cut across the space.
She didn’t move from the boy’s side. One hand remained cradling his head, the other pressed against his chest as if sheer will might coax life back into him. Tears caught at her lashes, bright in contrast to the blood smeared across her chestplate.
“No.” Chest heaving, Rynna turned instead to Kaelith.
He stood motionless, the sadness in his eyes a ledger she knew by heart.
“We will still win this day,” Mira murmured. Her jaw set, and with a trembling exhale, she eased the boy flat against the ground. Careful, reverent, she drew his lids shut with her thumb until his eyes were at rest.
“Who cares if we win if we lose the village?” Rynna spat.
Her throat worked, thinking of the boy’s fingers and the way he’d tried to hold his own guts in. Then, she thought of the children below and the small lungs that would not hold through a night of smoke and blade.
“We’re going,” Rynna said.
Mira’s mouth parted, then shut again. Her shoulders sagged beneath the burden of armor that suddenly looked too heavy, and the braid down her back drooped forward as her head bowed. She pressed her palm against the boy’s chest a final time before dragging her hand away and forcing it to her side.
“There are only two of you.” When she finally looked up, her eyes were dry. “I can’t remove anyone from the line. They’re too close.”
Rynna felt the words like cold water. The two women looked at each other then, and the world narrowed.
“I trust you to protect the world,” Rynna said, the pledge oddly formal in her mouth.
Mira blinked, bringing a fist to her chest. “And I trust you to protect our future.”
For a breath, she stood there, feeling the Weaving hum in her blood as if it, too, approved the change. She had wanted permission; what she’d been given instead was responsibility.
“Okay then.” She finally exhaled, turning to Kaelith. “You ready? Two against an army.”
He didn’t answer, at least not out loud.
Until the world burns.His arm extended, and, without fanfare, he closed his fingers around her hand. Then, with a sudden twist, he yanked her forward, using the momentum to sling her past the edge and out into the open air.
It was something they’d been playing with on the ridges, but her heart still jumped into her throat as her boots left stone and the world tipped vertical. Stone blurred past in streaks of gray and dust, hollowing her stomach for just an instant. Then she grinned, lips peeling back, fangs piercing in the sun. And for half a heartbeat, she thrilled in the fall—the rush of speed and the wild promise of what waited below. She shouldn’t enjoy what was coming. Children’s lives were on the line. But the dark power stirred inside her all the same, pulsing in anticipation.
Kaelith would follow; she didn’t need to look to know it. He’d make his way down the winding path nearly as fast as her fall. Then, they would meet the enemy.
The thought coiled through her blood, hot and eager, her mouth watering with the promise of violence. A shiver climbed her spine, too close to pleasure, and for a moment she savored it, before shame soured the edge.
Either way, whether she enjoyed it or not, she would kill them all.
