Page 71 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

The barrier dropped between us.

Something deep within me eased when he stepped into my space, as though perhaps all was not yet lost.

August looked like an outsider as he surveyed my cramped quarters.

We had that in common—that sense that neither of us quite belonged here.

Before the clatter of the mess hall had swallowed him, his anxiety tugged at my shadows. There was something familiar in that twisting unease. In the way he resisted standing in the shoes the universe had poured him into.

Throughout four months of stopping blood loss and resealing wounds, I hadn’t once heard what had become of The Great Commander. Whispers circulated, each clan repeating its own version of what he was supposed to be.

The High Healer.

King Calloway.

The name didn’t matter. The prophecy remained the same.

He was our one chance at salvation from the death so brazenly seizing our people.

But to me, he was still Aren’s rookie—the man who’d held me together during the first weeks of the hell we’d found ourselves in. The unexpected friend whose agony equaled my own, yet who’d still made room to carry my burdens on his shoulders.

He and Alec had all but dropped to their knees to convince me I wasn’t responsible for this nightmare when I shattered upon waking after six days of ascension, only to learn I’d missed the burning of the boats.

That there was still no sign of my Blythe.

Failed.

We failed.

I failed.

And now August was here, safe for the moment, standing in the dormitories.

He ran one finger along the table, pausing before the bundle of garden sage. He touched the twine knotted around its center, then looked at me with raised brows.

“For warding against negative spirits, obviously,” I said, smiling as he shook his head.

“Some things never change,” he muttered playfully.

His boots stopped abruptly when he noticed the sheathed swords stored in the umbrella stand beside the table.

Then the glowing Glock resting on top.

A hint of a smirk lifted one corner of his mouth.

“For when they refuse to leave,” I said sweetly, giving him my best doe eyes.

“And some things do.” He chuckled as he stepped around the table and studied the photographs pinned to the wall.

Some were singed. Many were torn.

But they were all still hanging—proof that we had reasons to keep fighting.

His expression turned solemn as he studied a picture of Blythe and me with our tongues out and our fingers raised in peace signs. Then he froze on the Polaroid Aren had taken of the two of us laughing, wrapped in my sheets, his lips pressed to my cheek.

A token.

A gift from Ally, tucked inside the go bag she’d hastily shoved into my arms.