The soldiers were holding. Barely, but they were holding.
It was over quickly. It felt like it wasn't.
Then one of Vorn's men — an older, broader guy who had been shouting out orders — raised his fist, and the attack halted as suddenly as it began.
The silence that followed was the silence of people catching their breath and counting their injuries and trying to work out who'd won.
Nobody had won. That was the answer.
Each side still had men remaining. They had simply survived it, and nobody wanted to admit how close it had been.
“Enough,” the older man said. His eyes moved across our group and settled on me. “Where is she?”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” I lied.
He looked at me for a long moment. Then he looked at Nicco.
Nicco looked back at him with the expression of a man who had nothing to apologize for and knew it wouldn't help.
“You had no right,” the man said to him.
“Did you?” Nicco asked, his tone easy and almost pleasant, like they were discussing the weather. “She wasn’t yours either.”
The honesty of it seemed to make it worse, and I held back my groan. Why couldn’t he at leasttryto be reasonable?
“Vorn wants her back.”
“Do you see her?” I snapped, stepping forward. “She left of her own accord. We didn't take her. If she got out, she made her own choice to leave.”
“In this?” He gestured at the landscape around us, at the open snow, the gray sky, the nothingness in every direction. “She’ll die.”
I held his stare. “That was her choice to make.” I didn’t look at any of them with him. “If she chose to leave your camp, knowing she’d die out here… well, I think that tells you enough, don’t you?”
The older man looked at me for a long time. Something moved through his expression that wasn't anger, something older and more tired than anger.
“Vorn gaveyoushelter,” he said finally.
“He did,” I said. “And I'm sorry for what happened. That wasn't agreed to. It wasn't my call to make or anyone else’s right in this group.” I didn't look at Baxley. “But she's gone, and that's done, and there's no undoing it.”
Another silence. Longer this time.
“If she dies out there,” the man said, “that's on you.”
“No,” I said quietly. “It's on the man who took her from her caravan in the first place. It’s on the husband who traded her for passage.”
He glared at me, and I didn’t waver my gaze. “Vorn wants you back.”
“Vorn can want.” I tightened my grip on my sword.
“You broke the agreement.”
I nodded. I took responsibility for Baxley’s actions as my own. “While it was done in ignorance on my part, I concede it was done. But I will not go back with you.” I gestured to the men and Larana, who listened intently. “They have tasked me with a trailfind. I am obligated to them.”
“I don’t give a fuck. Vorn said?—”
“Vorn can go fuck himself.”
My eyes closed briefly before I turned my head and glared at Nicco. “Can you just… not.”
