“You’re back.” My voice is soft.
She squeezes my hand once, before rising to walk back toward the camp, still humming. I remain there, the night deepening around me. I should sleep too. I’ve been running on nothing for days, but I can’t quiet my mind.
The bonds keep pulling at my attention, demanding to be noticed. And underneath them, at the very edge of my awareness, there’s something else. A sensation I almost missed, faint and distant.
I close my eyes and reach for it.
It’s not Therin, or Vel, or Serath. It’s not Caelum, whose space in the bond remains dark and silent. It’selsewhere. A distant flicker.
East.
The direction is clear, even if nothing else is. Somewhere to the east, there’s a thread that wants to connect to me. A presence reaching toward me.
My breath stills. Another of my warriors is out there. Notherewith us, but out there somewhere. Still alive.Free, or the bond wouldn’t be reaching me at all. The iron would have smothered it the way it smothered everything else.
For centuries, I assumed they were all either caged or dead. But this tenuous thread means someone remained free somehow.
I reach harder along it, trying to identify who it belongs to.The sensation slips away. It’s too faint, too far, for me to hold on to. All I get is the direction—east—and an impression ofalive. Nothing more.
But alive is enough. Alive and free means we’re not alone. It means that we have something to move toward. But that’s something for later. When we’re more stable. When we have the strength to move forward.
I rise from the rock and start walking the perimeter of the camp, checking every thread of the veil, every anchor point, and every place where the concealment might fray.
Therin has set up a watch rotation—four fae at a time, stationed at the cardinal points, and armed with human swords. I stop and speak with each of them, making sure they know what to watch for and telling them to come for me if anything moves in the forest.
I’m almost to my quarters when a wave of revulsion hits me so hard I stagger sideways. I catch myself on a tree trunk and close my eyes, chasing down the thread of emotion to its cause.
Her. TheMoirthalen. The human princess. Her horror is flowing through the bond I forced on her.
The images come fragmented at first. Her chambers. Afternoon light slanting through the window. Her hands shaking.
I focus harder, riding the emotion until the connection snaps into place, and I’m inside her head.
Her attention is focused on the dressing table in front of her, and a small, unwrapped package. On the cloth is something small, pale, and pointed.
Anear.
A fae ear, bloody and fresh with a tag attached to it. Beside it is a note bearing the wordsFrom my kennels.
But there’s a quality about the images that suggests she’s dreaming. I’m not seeing events as they happen the way shedid at the Dell. She’s asleep. Yet the emotion pouring through the bond suggests that she’s not simply dreaming but reliving something that happened. The horror is as fresh as when she lived through finding that ear the first time.
I pull back, tasting copper where I’ve bitten my tongue.
“Cairn?” Therin’s voice reaches me as he crosses toward me.
I straighten, pushing off the tree trunk. His eyes scan over me, noting the palm still pressed against the tree, the slight tremor in my other hand.
“What’s wrong?”
I don’t answer straight away, still untangling myself from the emotions still coming at me through the bond.
“The woman who walked the cages the other day. She was the one who I’d been chosen for. I used her to break my collar, and then the forest wards.” I rub one hand along my jaw. “When I drew her blood, I forced a bloodlink on her, so I could see through her eyes. I needed a way into the Dell, and that seemed the best way.”
“All right.” His tone makes it clear he’s waiting for the problem.
My lips quirk. “I miscalculated.” I made a mistake because I was too desperate to think it through. “It’s not a one-way link. When she feels something strongly, her emotions bleed through to me.”
Therin frowns. “That’s not how a bloodlink works.”
