As the current carried through his skull, I noticed Nira sliding down the hill toward the road, and she knelt on one knee when she hit the ground, firing an urgent shot my direction. It soared right at me, nicking my arm just below the shoulder on its arc upward and then plunging point first into the neck of a soldier who’d been about to swing at me. I pushed the lifeless body of the man I’d shocked to the dirt as Nira rose to her feet.
The action around us was dying down, and I glanced at the wound she’d made as she strode over. It was bleeding, and painful even though not very deep. I’d live, but I still glared at her. “How many times have I got to tell you to keep your bloody elbow up?” She was a spectacular archer. She could be so accurate when she really tried.
She leaned in close to look at it, and then clapped her hand over the injury. “You’re welcome.”
I groaned at the shooting pain of her slap, muttering through clenched teeth, “Gods, woman, you’re trying to kill me.”
Nira simply gave me an exaggerated grin of apology, but it faded not a moment later as her gaze was pulled behind me. I turned to follow the look, only to find that there was still one enemy soldier remaining. The man was cowered behind a nearby bush as my troops surveyed the supplies we’d just taken ownership of. I twirled my wrist, guiding a static coil around him, and I yanked him out of cover with a flick of it, bringing him all the way to me. He was trembling with fear, even as I stood him in front of me and released him from the hold.
“P-p-please,” he stuttered, head cowering and hands folded at his chest. “I have children. What will they do without me?”
For a long span of seconds, I just stared at him, taking in his fear and his words and his submission. We never took prisoners, and only sometimes took converts, but this man made no plea for either. Instead, when after a few moments I said nothing, he turned and started sprinting down the road. I was going to let him go—he clearly wasn’t much of a soldier anyway—but Nira loaded an arrow into her bow.
“Trust me,” she murmured in response to his unanswered question, and fired a shot that pierced through the back of his head. “They’ll live.” Then she looked at me, asking, “Was my elbow high enough, First Ward?” Instead of replying to her sarcasm with words, I touched a single finger to her neck, allowing a small spark to jump into her skin. It scared her more than it hurt, but she yelped with surprise. “Do that again and I’ll offer Haunt a portion of all my meals to bite you in the ass.”
I didn’t have to touch her. This time I flicked a spark at her, and when she yelped a second time, the hint of a rare smile almost graced my lips. At least, until she retaliated by slapping the arrow wound in my arm, and then she hurried away before I could do anything to return the favor.
“Rangers!” I hollered so all the rebels could hear me, and shook out the stinging in my arm. “Gather the carts, let’s move!”
I stood off to the side of the road, watching as some of my rangers drove the horse-drawn supply carts past and in the direction of the caves. I took up the rear, and waited patiently for the group to get a good distance ahead, putting space between them and me. Then I strode to the largest tree visible from the road, and did what I did every time we raided supplies and left bodies behind. I slapped my hand to the trunk in a surge of lightning, sending that power flowing like a river into the wood. It was deliberate in strength and placement and shape. It created the symbol of an owl, burning the mark of the Vigilant into the bark so that whoever happened to see this, whoever took the message to Hazlitt that they’d been robbed, would also take him the knowledge that it was me, and that I wasn’t hiding from him. I was fighting back.
After leaving my message, I caught up with the rear of the caravan on a flash, where Nira and the she-wolf had positioned themselves, to travel at their sides. For a long few minutes, we walked behind the company in silence. It was almost enough time for me to start appreciating it, but it didn’t last.
“Truly,” Nira said, “is your arm alright?”
I adjusted my arm to take a look. It had nearly stopped seeping, and once we returned to the caves, Sevedi would be able to heal it quickly. “Aye.”
There was a beat of tense silence, and I just knew that Nira was trying to find a way to bring up the dreams, or the fact that Kingston and my mother were worried, or that I hadn’t been myself. Instead of going straight at it, she said, “Rhien fancies you.”
I turned a hard eye on her, and growled in warning, “Nira.”
She was talking about one of the kitchen ladies, a woman who Nira, Kingston, and my mother had all tried to get me to at least talk to. To say more to than ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Rhien was a fugitive who’d escaped from one of Ronan’s magic sanctuaries when Hazlitt began purging the kingdom of the abled who wouldn’t swear allegiance to him. She was kind, and if I actually tried to pay attention, attractive, but their requests only made me angry.
“Kiena,” Nira sighed, “you’re not the only one who lost something.”
“You lost your father and mother,” I said in irritation, “I didn’t lose Ava. I left her. I betrayed her.”
“And you think she wouldn’t forgive you?” Nira argued. “She wouldn’t want you to spend the rest of your life torturing yourself about it.”
“And when we find her,” I muttered, “I’ll no longer have to.”
“Kiena,” she sighed again, and I knew what was coming.
“Don’t,” I spat.
“You look at me,” she commanded. She reached over and grabbed the neck of my tunic, turning me toward her as she halted our pace. “You need to prepare yourself for what Kingston will say when we get back.”
Over the last six months, Kingston had his spies searching every prison in Valens and Ronan for Ava. Every time we got word on a specific prison, it was that she wasn’t being held there. Six months, and we were supposed to hear from a spy in the last place we hadn’t searched. No one had said it to me, no one had yet had the courage to, but I knew they all believed she was dead.
“Kiena,” Nira said, “you need to prepare yourself for hearing that she’s not there, and you need to accept that she’s gone.” I knocked her hands away and took a step back, preparing to spark jump and put some distance between us. “Don’t do the—”
I disappeared before she could finish, placing myself at the front of the caravan. I didn’t want to hear what she had to say, nor did I want to hear it from Mother or Kingston. For six months, I’d lived with this guilt, with knowing how badly I’d betrayed Ava. The only thing that had kept me going was the belief that we’d find her, and that I could make it better. Even if she never forgave me, at least I could know she was safe. She could hate me for the rest of her life, she could be happy with someone else, as long as she was happy. That’s all that mattered. I owed it to her, and I’d never stop searching, and I’d never give up on her.
Not once the entire, full day’s trek back to the caves did Nira try and walk with me again. It was dark by the time we returned. The wolf made her escape into the woods, and it wasn’t until we’d handed over the rations and weapons on the carts to the supply boys, stowed our armor and wandered into the food cavern, that Nira finally found me. She sat down at my side, but didn’t say a thing as we were served leftovers from supper. Word of our return must have got around while we ate, because two young boys sprinted across the dining hall.