The camp breaks before first light. Leoric is already standing over me when I wake, which tells me he didn't sleep. We don't talk about what we found. There's nothing that fits inside a camp packing up at dawn.
An hour and a half before the ground is flat enough for me to see the horizon for the first time in days. I wait until Theren is far enough ahead to be out of easy hearing.
"There's a settlement two hours west." Not asking permission. "Human. Hidden infrastructure. I helped build the supply routes. They'll have food, somewhere to study the documents properly, and people who understand discretion."
Leoric looks at me. "You're vouching for it."
"I'm suggesting it. You can vouch for it yourself once we arrive."
He studies my face for a moment. Then he nods. I redirect the group in strides so we can get there in one piece. In the distance, I can see the settlement in the collapsed valley. It has the kind of entrance that looks like a dead end until you know which stone to push, which is information I gave to exactly four people during the war and trusted all of them to hold. Themarker is still on the right wall when I find it. A cut shaped like a heron's foot, half-buried in lichen. We round the outcrop into the opening and the first person to see us raises the alarm. Not for me. For Leoric.
They know his face, but I don't think from the notices. They're too new. It's from before, from stories that spread through these places like all true terrible things spread. The Ash King. The burned face, the silver hair, the pale eye that doesn't move the way a living thing should. Two men put themselves between Leoric and the nearest cluster of children before I can speak. A third reaches for something at his belt.
"He's with me." My voice carries loudly. "He stays."
The man with the belt doesn't look convinced. Neither do the other two.
"Corrine." I hear the voice from the other side. Isolde is crossing the open area toward me quickly. She looks the same as the last time I saw her — exhausted around the eyes. She pulls me into a brief hard hug, then holds me at arm's length and checks me top to bottom as she always does.
"You look terrible," she declares.
"It's been a week."
The corner of her eye catches Leoric, and the warmth doesn't disappear — Isolde doesn't work that way — but it changes into something more careful. "I heard about the ambush notices"
"Then you know why we need somewhere to stay."
"Of course I do." She's now fixed on Leoric. "I'm still working out what remains."
"He stays, Izzy."
She doesn't understand my reasoning, and glares at me, before she nods once, and turns back toward the settlement. I'm nearly to the main section when a familiar voice comes from the left.
"You actually survived."
Evelisse is leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and her quick green eyes moving between me and Leoric with the expression of someone who has been waiting to have opinions about exactly this situation. The knife scars on her fingers look newer. She is alive and intact and has clearly been here long enough to develop comfortable informality about survival.
"You could lead with relief," I suggest.
"I could." Her glance moves to Leoric without careful calculation like adults use. "You're shorter than the stories."
Leoric looks at her shocked, but chooses not to respond.
"The Blackwater commander," Evelisse begins circling him. "The stories said your eye burned out fighting the fire single-handedly. They also said you were eight feet tall. They said you burned the settlement at Farrow Crossing on your own orders." Her tone is accusing.
"Evelisse," I say in horror.
"I'm asking." Her voice sharpens. "Corrine smuggled my mother through a checkpoint three years ago. I get to ask."
Leoric meets her gaze. "Farrow Crossing was ordered above my command level. I was in the eastern corridor when it happened."
"And you didn't stop it."
"No."
Evelisse looks at him for another moment, then at me, then back. She doesn't say anything else to him, there isn't much she could to the kind of honesty he just gave her.
"There are people here who'll want to talk to you. About the medicine paths. About the Barret family crossing." She glances at Leoric again. "There are also people who'll want to talk about the Ash Commander. Maybe you should both come in."
