“Alei so’nim. Daughter of… something only the celvusa knows,” Oni replied, shaking his head. “Our language is roughly similar to the ancient shadow-kind, but even our elders cannot decipher the meaning.” He sucked in a breath as he looked at Elias. “I am sorry. I did not mean to insult—”
Elias waved a hand in dismissal before rubbing the bruise on his jaw. The bruise Farrah refused to heal after she snarled at Serill for offering to fix it. “I think we both needed to work through those emotions.”
Oni walked with him down the hallway. “I should have known better. That Brela would put her life on the line for…”
His voice faded out.
“Men,” Farrah snorted from her corner. She smirked at Serill. “At least I traded Brela for somecivilcompany.”
Despite the hells clouding his mind, he chuckled. Joining her at the wall, he plopped down next to her with a grunt. Very uncivilized.
She bumped his shoulder. “We are a terrible influence on you.”
Serill grinned, pressing his head into the stone behind him. “Yes, but at least you all make a little more sense.” His grin slowly faded. “Do you think they’re okay?”
Cason and Brela.
Farrah let out a long breath. “Of course they are.” She threaded her fingers over her knee and flashed her sparkling sapphire eyes at him. “The dragon and the shadow wolf infiltrating a military outpost. No one will see it coming.”
44
Proof
Everyone saw it coming.
Alarms rang. Shouts and laughter grew louder as they surrounded her, hissingshadow-cursed. Fire and shield exploded. Fists and swords and hellthorn weighed her down until she lay prostrate. The mud wouldn’t calm the burning, burning, burning of her skin.
Alive, even as her bones melted.
Brela blinked the image out of her mind like she blinked the rain out of her eyes. Then snapped her teeth at the shadows who had first told her that path through the Anfroy camp would be safe.
Cason—flattened and hiding in the grass to her left—didn’t seem to notice her momentary distraction. “What about that way?” he whispered.
Then pointed to the exact path she’d just listened to.
“Wait four seconds,” she replied, counting. Sure enough, the flaps of a tent along that path burst open and a new guard stationed themselves along the route.
He wiped the water from his eyes, groaning under his breath. “Where was this dedication to protocol years ago?” Brela pretended not to hear him as he turned to her. “We need to take advantage of tonight. The rain and mud will mask our scent from any perception-blessed.”
So would the proximity to the wall. The very obviouslycrackedwall, even in darkness and shrouded by foggy rain.
“But rain and mud make it very hard to stay quiet,” she mumbled. Squelches from boots in the camp echoed even to their safe perch in the hill above. And she could already feel herself sinking into the softening ground below her. “Keep looking. There has to be a way to get in.”
They’d located the main cluster of tents, the ones likely to have the plans they needed. No sign of the drill… yet. No sign of any Veil shards large enough to serve as building blocks for the machine. Just hellthorn.
Lots and lots of hellthorn.
Boxes and mounds and towers of it, scattered around the outskirts and through the tents. Dried out, at least. Weaker in strength, but still capable of doing a lot of damage. Rain would help keep it from incapacitating her completely.
Not enough.
“We can’t even be sure those tents will be empty,” Cason muttered.
They were. They would be. Those shadows didn’t lie.
She could feel the entire section from here. They were strategy rooms, not sleeping quarters. Lined with tables and papers and weapons… and a plethora of herbs that she’d never identify without Elias.
Find me a path,she called to the darkness.Quickest in and out, with the least amount of feet.
