From the devastated village of Ashford, Damia had marched her battalion onward. They had lost most of a day and she wanted to make up some of that time. The commander did not halt her troops until long after dark to make camp.
Now they rested, as best they could. Damia wondered how many of them were having nightmares, tonight. Perhaps that explained why she could not seem to get to sleep herself. Dreaming might take her right back to the half-eaten dead of Ashford, lying in the street amidst the charred remains of their homes.
“Heaven help us all,” she whispered to the darkness of her tent, and the starry sky high above. She wished she could see the stars. Breathing the night air might help clear her mind. For a moment she considered leaving the tent.
Instead, she turned on her side and closed her eyes. Damia might be haunted, but she could not let her troops see. They had done the decent, honorable thing in Ashford, but for the sake of morale she had to appear confident and undaunted. They had to believe their commander had a hard edge to her soul.
Eyes closed, she saw the faces of the dead, and instead of drifting toward sleep, she felt more awake than ever. She listened to the wind outside, to the low garble of soldiers talking, and to the restless horses nearby. She caught herself waiting to hear the bark of that lost dog again, searching for its owners.
The night softened.
Instead of that distant bark, she heard a quick fluttering, as though of wings. A frown creased her half-conscious brow. The wind against the entry flaps of the tent-it must be. But the sound came again, and this time she knew it was not the wind at all.
Wings.
Then there came a gentle sound that might have been the entry flaps parting and a light step as someone entered the tent.
Perytons!
Her sword lay in its scabbard. Guns were faster. She lunged from the bedroll and snatched one of her guns from its holster, rolling as she moved, then came up onto her knees and took aim at the entrance to the tent. A dark figure stood there, silhouetted in the opening by starlight.
“I’ve been shot before and it hurt like hell,” a voice said. “Could you point that somewhere else?”
A breeze blew into the tent and the feathers braided into his hair swayed.
Damia stared, letting the gun fall to her side. She strode over, grabbed Blue Jay by a fistful of his shirt, and pulled him into the tent even as she covered his lips with her own. His arms went around her, holding her gently, but Damia did not want tenderness. Not now. She pressed her body against him just as fiercely as she did her mouth. Idly she tossed her gun onto the bedroll and kissed him until they were both breathless.
Only when he broke the kiss and drew back from her, when she saw the powerfully hewn lines of his face in the slight illumination that came through the slit between entry flaps, did she see the concern in his eyes. Damia nearly asked him what was wrong, but then she felt the moist heat on her cheeks and tasted salt on her lips, and realized she had begun to cry.
Any other night, with any other person, she would have been mortified. But this was Blue Jay. Damia smiled and wiped away her tears.
“I missed you,” she whispered. “Especially today.”
She told him about Ashford, about the people who had been butchered there and the children whose bodies had been stripped of flesh by hungry Perytons.
“This war’s about so much more than a broken truce,” she said.
Blue Jay brushed his fingers through her long, wild hair. “For my kind, it always has been.”
She nodded. “I thought I understood that before, but I didn’t. Not really. Victory is the only possible outcome now, isn’t it?”
His eyes darkened. “The alternative is unthinkable.”
“How are you even here?” she asked, gazing at him as though she had just discovered some lost treasure. She could not take her eyes off of him.
The trickster took her face in his hands, studying her just as she had done with him, as though to make sure she was not some illusion, some beautiful mirage in the midst of ugly times.
“It’s a long story,” he said. “Best told on the road, I think. Truth be told, darlin’, it’s fortune that brings us together tonight. We got out of Palenque through the sandcastle and have been heading south to join Hunyadi, just like you. I’ve been scouting ahead from the air and saw your camp, came down to talk to the commander. I had the strangest feeling it would be you, here, but I brushed it off. I’ve never been a clairvoyant. Not one of my skills. But here you are. There’s no magic to it, really. We’re all on the road to war.”
Damia felt her breath stolen from her again as his hands slid down over her body.
“You don’t have enough trust in fate.” A smile spread across her face. “There’s magic in this, all right. All sorts of magic. But you said ‘we.’ Who else is with you?”
Blue Jay nodded, mischief returning to his eyes. Even in that near darkness, she could see its spark. “More than you’d think, and all camped just a few miles away. Li, Cheval, and Grin all came back from Palenque with me. But now we’ve got the gods on our side. Some of them, anyway. Ares and Mercury and half a dozen others or so from Perinthia. Fuck, there’s a Titan, too. Cronus. Wait till the Atlanteans see him. Then we’ve got dozens of Harvest gods with us. The roots told them about the war, they said. Whatever it is, they know what’s going on and they’re helping.”
Damia laughed in disbelief. “That’s incredible. Almost gives me hope. The king will be very pleased. Did you round them all up yourself?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Me? No. It’s all Kitsune’s doing. Hers and Coyote’s. They’ve had a hell of a time. The Sandman’s out and about, hunting for her and for Oliver, apparently.”
“But-”
“We thought he was dead? Yeah. We did. Looks like we were wrong. Maybe the Sandman can’t be killed. I don’t know. But, yeah, he’s still alive. He took one of Coyote’s eyes at the Atlantic Bridge and would have killed Kitsune had Coyote and Cronus not driven him off.”
Damia shivered. “Do you think he’ll come back?”
Blue Jay’s eyes went cold. “No question. But we’re on guard, now. For both Kitsune and Oliver.”
She froze and stared at him. “You’ve got him? Oliver’s with you?”
“And Julianna as well. Collette’s off with Frost somewhere, but we’ll catch up to them eventually. The important thing is that we’re bringing Oliver to Hunyadi. A few months ago, they were hunting him. Now the king will put him up in front of the troops and tell them the Legend-Born has come. That ought to boost morale.”
“We’ll need it,” Damia replied. “So, you really think the Bascombes are Legend-Born?”
Blue Jay stroked her arms. For a moment, his gaze seemed distant. Then he nodded. “They are. There’s power in them like nothing I’ve ever seen. Magic I’m not even sure they understand yet.”
Damia took that in, wondering what it would mean. If Oliver and Collette could really bring down the Veil, take the Lost Ones home, would she even go? She knew the answer. Never. Her loyalty to Hunyadi might have been enough to keep her here, but now she had Blue Jay in her life. She would stay here with him, even if she was the last human in the legendary world.
Exhaustion caught up with her. Her whole body ached.
“You need to sleep,” he said.
“Not yet,” Damia said, as she began unbuttoning his jeans.
The war could wait until morning.
CHAPTER 16
T he fox trotted through the woods, hoping for a vole or mouse or insomniac squirrel, anything to capture her mind. It helped to have left her human form behind. The scents of the earth and growing things and the creatures of the wood filled her mind. The sounds of the nighttime erased the voices that haunted her from the day. Here she could find joy. Here, she was only a fox, and not expected to be anything but that.