Cara
We landed well before the rebel camp so no spies would see dragons near it and hiked the rest of the way. I held Lidi’s hand, grateful to be with my family again and to have them out of the queen’s palace. Rees walked on my other side, his enormous head often ducking under my fingertips then rising up, pushing up my hand so I would be reminded to pet him.
“You are ruining my terrifying hound,” Fear complained but did not sound disappointed.
The camp appeared the way a held breath releases: gradually, then all at once.
One moment there was forest, the dense, lightless kind. Then a shimmer at the edge of one’s vision, and the trees parted into a makeshift village.
Structures patched from salvaged timber and stretched canvas, low against the earth as if trying not to be seen even from within. There were buildings up within the canopy of the towering trees.
Two guards stepped into our path. Fear’s gaze flickered up, and an itch bristled at the back of my neck. I was sure there were more above us in the trees with nocked bows. I already had Lidi’s hand in mine, and her steady, bubbly stream of conversation washed over me, unheard now. At least holding onto her made it easier not to reach for my sword.
Tay and Mam were behind me. The Nightwalkers walked at the back of our group, hooded and masked at Fear’s instruction. Trying to conceal what they were would read even worse than bringing Nightwalkers into camp.
“Hold.” The word landed flat and hard. The man who’d said it was big, probably not mortal, and his eyes tracked across our group, cold and hard, until he found the Nightwalkers. “You’re not bringing Nightwalkers in here.”
“They’re with us,” Fear said.
The second guard was looking at Tay. Tay smiled back at her, pleasant and vague.
I tightened my hand around Lidi’s.
“The Nightwalkers don’t come in.” The big guard hadn’t moved. “Whatever else you’ve brought, fine. Not them.”
“They are my guests,” said a voice from behind him.
Corbyn came through the gathered bodies. He was tall. Golden-haired, broad-shouldered, wearing light leather armor and a face that was both handsome and tired.
My father.
The word still sat badly.
His gaze found mine, roamed my face with brief, open emotion. But only for a lightning flash. Then he moved on. “They’re all welcome here.”
The guard’s jaw was set. He looked at Riven and Tesa. At Tay. At Fear and the shifters.
Then at me, and he looked at me as if he understood I was the reason why these dangerous intruders were being welcomedinto a rebel camp that had survived so long under the queen’s nose.
More guards stepped out of the woods, letting themselves be seen. The collective fear these people felt settled over us like a heavy shroud.
Corbyn didn’t try to embrace me. He looked past me and saw my mother. I didn’t have to see where he was looking to know it from the way his face changed. It was like watching the clouds shift across the sky, a day’s changes crowded into one moment; one emotion chased another, from recognition to relief to joy to regret to grief. All in a moment.
My Maris.
My throat felt tight, but I could not deal with it now. Not when I had to walk into my father’s camp with my husband at my side. These two men had made me into their weapon.
“Let me show you to your quarters, and then I’d like to have a discussion with you both.” Corbyn walked ahead of us, pointing out different aspects of his camp.
People paused as we passed, watching us with open interest. I thought at first it was because we were strangers in their midst, and more than that, we had brought fresh dangers.
But I was always slow to see the good. It dawned on me gradually: the way their eyes softened when they landed on Fear. The small collective shift, like a room settling, when people registered who he was. A woman with her arm in a sling who straightened when he passed. An older man who said his name under his breath, just the name, as if he were assuring himself he was real. Then he murmuredmyname.
A small child gaped at us, then ran away, and then there were more children, orbiting us like moons.
Fear was a hero in this world. More than that. He was a legend.
And I was the dragon-marked wife. The miracle. The mortal hope.
