“Marso, take Jentt.” She handed him her talisman. “It’s my turn to distract.”
Jentt objected. “We have to stick together—”
“You’re not dying twice,” she told him. To Zera, she said, “Battle conditions again. Obey me. If I can’t rejoin you, get them to Stran’s farmhouse. Then go to Grand Master Lorn and tell him everything.”
Squeezing her shoulder, Zera didn’t waste time arguing. She shepherded the boys through the greenery. The branches and bushes closed behind them.
Taking a breath, Kreya stood. Counted to three.
And then called, “Here I am! Come get me!”
Taking the invitation, the croco-raptors burst out of the trees, and Kreya sprang into motion. Calling on steadiness, she climbed a tree. She swung on a vine above the croco-raptors. Landed on the ground. Ran, with only her own speed to draw on.
Lead them away,she thought.
Give my friends time.
She ran toward the river, a plan forming in her mind. It was a terrible plan, and she knew her friends, Jentt especially, would have hated it, but she wasn’t taking a vote. She never did.
She’d have to time it right, make sure that her pursuers believed they’d nearly caught her when, in fact, they hadn’t. Slowing, she feigned a limp, as if she were wounded prey.
As two croco-raptors charged from the front, having circled her, she grabbed another vine and shot over them. One grazed her leg with its claws. She felt the jab of pain, but adrenaline pushed it back.
The river roared, invisible through the thick mat of treesand vines. Slicing at the greenery with her sword, she plunged toward the crashing water.
As Marso had said, the stone fish was in the river, half-submerged and causing the flow to tumble around him. She led the croco-raptors to it.
Wild with certainty that they would catch their prey, the lizards failed to see the danger.
Two of them fell straight into its mouth, twitching once from the venom before the mouth closed around them. The other croco-raptors veered sharply away as Kreya raced over the back of the creature.
She moved as fast and carefully as she could. If only the soles of her shoes touched its toxic skin... she could ditch the shoes. Or use them as weapons.
On the other side, Kreya leaped for the riverbank.
She almost made it.
The stone fish sliced its tail through the water, and one scale brushed lightly against an exposed bit of Kreya’s arm. It was the lightest touch, but she knew instantly that it was too late.
She kept running, though, telling herself not to think, not to look back, and for bones’ sake not to slow. She heard her pursuers fall behind as they were forced to contend with the stone fish.
She was now contending with it in her own way. The poison permeated her muscles, and she felt them clench. Her vision swam, and the green around her swirled. Slowing, she dropped to her knees and swayed.
At least the others lived.
Or at least they had the chance to live.
Zera would get them to Stran’s farmhouse. Amurra would nurse them back to health, probably cursing Kreya’s name fromher pretty mouth. Grand Master Lorn wouldn’t ignore Zera’s report—Kreya had faith that Zera wouldn’t let him. It should have been enough to know she’d done all she could. But it wasn’t. Oh, it wasn’t.
“I’m not ready to die,” she whispered.
She didn’t even know for certain if she’d truly formed the words.
Everything plunged into blackness and silence.
Chapter Sixteen
Kreya woke to the smell of baking bread filling her nose. She opened her mouth and breathed it in before she opened her eyes. “Not dead?” she croaked.
