Chapter 5

Jory was sitting on a stool in Morwenna's tent when I came in, grinning like a boy who had just won a prize.

"Blade!" He tried to leap to his feet. Morwenna put a hand on his shoulder without looking up from the splint she was tying, and he sat back down with a wince. "Sorry. Sorry. I meant to salute."

"You don't have to salute me. You have a broken arm."

"It's a clean break, Blade. Auntie says so." He held the arm up proudly, half wrapped in linen and green willow bark. "Honestly? Best thing that's ever happened to me. I've got a story now. The Blade of the Alpha broke my arm."

"I'm so sorry," I said, and my voice came out thinner than I wanted. "It was my fault. I lost control, and I—"

"Blade," Jory said, kindly and firmly, the way you'd speak to a nervous horse. "It's fine. Everyone loses control sometimes. I've seen you cut down forty Blackmere wolves. I'm just glad I was on your side."

My stomach twisted.

Forty Blackmere wolves. I could still hear Luca's voice saying, You've been too loyal to look. I hadn't heard him in a full day, and I could still hear it.

"Go on," Morwenna told him mildly. "Eat something. Rest the arm. Don't try to spar until I say so."

Jory beamed at us both and bounded out of the tent, and I stood there, hands hanging useless at my sides.

"Sit," Morwenna said.

I sat. She finished tying off the bandages and cleaned her hands in a basin, unhurried. Her tent smelled of crushed mint and old smoke, and the lantern swung gently overhead.

"That wasn't adrenaline," she said.

I said nothing.

"I'm not asking what it was." She dried her hands on a rag. "I'm telling you it will happen again. It won't get gentler by being ignored."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You said that last time, too."

I almost smiled. It felt like a betrayal.

"Sweet things and sharp things," Morwenna said, half to herself, gathering her herbs into neat little bundles. "They don't sit quietly when they're kept apart. They get restless. They break what's near them. Then they wonder why the world feels dangerous."

"Auntie—"

"That's all." She turned back to her work. "Mind the tea. Two cups a day. No more."

I opened my mouth, and a shadow fell across the doorway.

"Astrid."

I was on my feet before I knew it.

Dorian stood in the tent's entrance with the morning light behind him, silver hair burnished gold. He was dressed simply, in a plain gray tunic without his cloak or his blade, and he was smiling at me with the same gentle worry he had worn every time I'd come home wounded.

"Walk with me," he said.

We climbed the ridge together in silence.

The sun was just breaking over the eastern hills, and the whole valley below us was washed in pale gold and long shadows. The camp was waking, smoke curling from a dozen cookfires, wolves stretching and calling out to one another in the cold. It looked so peaceful. It looked like every morning of my life.

Dorian stopped at the crest, where a flat stone jutted out over the drop, and sat down. He patted the rock beside him, the way he had when I was eight years old.

I sat.

"You've been avoiding me," he said.

"I haven't."

"Your face says otherwise." He said it warmly, without accusation. "I saw you flinch yesterday when I spoke of the Blackmere and their tricks. I've known you seventeen years, my girl. I know when something's wrong."

I stared at my hands. "It's nothing. I'm tired."

"You are more than tired." He reached over, gently, and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. "And you're burning up. Astrid, you're ill. Why didn't you tell me?"

His concern was so real and so tender that my eyes stung.

"It's just a fever."

"Is it?" He studied me. "You broke a boy's arm in a friendly bout. You've barely eaten. You went out on patrol last night and came back near dawn."

My heart stopped.

"The young sentry at the east wall saluted you on your way out," Dorian said, not unkindly. "He mentioned it at breakfast, quite proudly. I asked myself where my Blade could be walking for four hours, in the dark, alone."

My mouth went dry.

"I couldn't sleep," I said quickly. "I walked. I lost track of time. I didn't want anyone to think I was—" I let my voice crack. It wasn't difficult. "Weak."

Dorian was quiet.

Then he sighed, and the sound went straight through me, so old and so tired, and he put an arm around my shoulders and drew me against his side.

"You are the strongest person I have ever known," he said into my hair. "But strength is not the same as being unbreakable. I don't want to lose you. Do you understand? You're all I have."

I closed my eyes.

He's lying to you.

I didn't hear it in Luca's voice. It was my own voice, small and cold and terrifying. I shoved it away with everything I had.

"I found you on a night like this," Dorian said softly. "Do you remember? A cold morning. You were eight, half-frozen, and you wouldn't let go of a silver pendant. You bit me when I tried to take it."

"I remember the biting," I said faintly.

He laughed, low and warm. "I put it away for safekeeping when you outgrew the chain. It's in my chest still. When this war is done, I'll give it back." A pause. "Perhaps we can finally find out whose it was."

I hadn't thought of that pendant in years. I had no memory of him taking it. It was strange how quickly the thought slid away, like water off glass.

"You never told me you kept it."

"You never asked."

That was true. I hadn't.

"Astrid," Dorian said. "I have news, and I want you to hear it from me before it reaches the camp."

I tensed.

"A rider came at dawn from the Blackmere border." He kept his arm around me, his voice light, almost casual. "Their king proposes a parley. Five days from now, at the Stonewater ford. Neutral ground, under a white banner."

The world narrowed to a single, high, ringing note.

"A parley," I whispered.

"He has asked for you by name."

I could not breathe.

I turned my head. Dorian was watching me, his face perfectly gentle, his eyes perfectly clear, and I saw something move behind them, quick and bright and gone.

"I wondered why he'd want the Blade," he said mildly. "I wondered if you had any idea."

"None," I said.

It came out steady. I was so proud of that, and so sick.

"Then we'll find out together." He squeezed my shoulder and stood, brushing off his tunic. "You will go, of course. I want you at the ford. Harrow will take forty of our best. You will be my eyes."

"And you?"

"I'll be with the main force at the ridge, watching." He smiled down at me. "You'll be perfectly safe, my girl. I would never send you anywhere I wasn't sure of."

He kissed my forehead and walked back down the ridge, and I sat there and watched him go.

I waited until he was out of sight. Then I closed my eyes, pressed my hand flat over the ache under my ribs, and reached for the thread that had gone slack the night before.

Luca.

Nothing.

Luca. Did you ask for me?

The silence was enormous.

Did you send that message? Answer me. Please.

The morning wind moved through the pines. Somewhere in the valley, a horn sounded for breakfast.

I had told him to get out of my head, and he had done exactly what I asked.

And for the first time, I understood that I had no way to call him back.