She hated them. Them and all the Blues. For everything they’d done. Everything they’d allowed.
Oh, she knew how strangely Val had been acting in the weeks before his arrest. His grim silence on his final visit home, combined with dire warnings and strangely intense goodbyes was evidence that something had been terribly wrong. Something his friends should have had the loyalty to help him solve. Val was a good man; she just had to find a way to prove it.
Nim drifted into a disturbed sleep, cold and uncomfortable, wracked by nightmares. She twitched and whimpered, occasionally opening her eyes and staring into the darkness of the woods as hunting owls called and small creatures rustled through the undergrowth. Listening intently for any movement, any danger, before drifting off again. It was a relief when the birds began their morning chorus and she finally opened her eyes to a hazy green-gray light.
She washed her face and filled her water bottles in one of the small streams lacing through the woods. Then she picked her way through the roots and stones back to the road.
She stood under a tree for long moments, watching. No one was nearby. Long golden streaks of light and shadow lay prettily over the road, and birds sang undisturbed.
Her whole body felt chilled and stiff, so she decided to walk for the first hour or two, and then, when she was warmed, try her wings again.
She took a few steps out onto the road and then stopped. The birds had gone eerily silent.
The hair stood up on her arms as she was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of danger, and she stumbled back into the shadow of the trees.
She whirled, ready to run.
Too late.
A man leaped from a nearby tree, wings spread wide, letting out a high, piercing whistle as he flew. Just like the sound of a hunting bird of prey. Oh gods, like a hawk.
Nim ducked under a low branch, tripped on the twisted roots at her feet, and only just righted herself as she fled.
She could hear answering whistles from up and down the road and knew that she would soon be surrounded. They were hunting her from the air, and there was nowhere to run. She would have to fight.
She ripped off her cloak and flung the satchel to the ground, freeing her arms. Pulled the knife out of its holster and backed against a tree, facing into a small clearing.
Her breath came in sharp pants as she watched the man who’d found her stalk into the forest, taking agile steps over the roots and rocks, closer and closer. Crashes behind her told her what she already knew: there was no escape that way. Hoofbeats on the road added to her hopelessness.
She clenched the knife tighter in her hand and forced herself to look at her attacker. Black uniform, too-long blond hair, a smug grin on a face that she might have thought handsome if he hadn’t been stalking toward her, intent on capturing her.
“I win!” he called out to his unseen team with a chuckle. “Told you she’d turn off at the forest.”
The answering chuckles were closer than she’d expected.
Nim stayed silent.
The man held up his empty hands as if to show her that he had no weapons. But Nim wasn’t falling for that. She knew all about this new crop of soldiers and how they treated women.
He took a step closer. And another.
Someone moved behind her tree, and the soldier’s eyes flicked to the side. Disregarding her as a danger.
It was her opening. Nim dove, scraping herself along the rocky floor. He reached for her, but she had tucked her wings in tight, and before he could grab her, she was past. Past and running for her life.
She could hear him behind her, him and others. She whimpered, heart hammering as she flung herself around another tree. And straight into a wall of hard muscles and leather armor.
She screamed and slashed out desperately with her knife, unable to see past the blur of leather and black. She felt her blade catch against his belted vambrace, but then he grabbed her wrist and spun her, pulling her hard, her back to his front. One thick, scaled arm descended over her chest, still gripping her wrist, the other at her waist, trapping her as effectively as if she was a small child.
He lifted her off the ground and carried her back, stopping when he reached the clearing.
She couldn’t see the man, only knew he wore the black armor and that she had to get away.
She threw her body back, bucking and kicking viciously behind her, but he simply spread his legs and gripped her tighter.
“Stop that,” his deep voice growled at her ear, but she was lost in her terror, trapped.
She flailed against him desperately, flinging her head forward, teeth bared, looking for somewhere not covered in leather that she could bite.
