Dawn Carver (3)

13

Casimir

All light has seeped from the sky when we finally emerge from the labyrinth of tunnels. Darkness greets us, its bitter cold biting at the bare skin exposed across my body. Draigh waits for us alone in the shadows of the moon above. When he sees us emerging, he immediately turns and continues forward through the trees.

We have to keep moving. They will be coming after us.

Nobody says a word as we move through the forest, creating our own path through the underbrush. I trained my whole life to move through nature seamlessly, leaving no trail. It always amused me how stealthy Freya thought she was when she snuck around in the shadows during training. She could never understand how I did it.

She didn't know I was a deserter, of course.

But, as we venture farther from the tunnels, I can't help but admire the shifters leading the way. Their stealth is natural, an instinct, not a learnt behavior like mine.

A thrill of adrenaline pulses through me. My legs burn. Days of starving in the cell with minimal movement has not been kind to my stamina. But I feel alive. More alive than I have felt in days. It fills my soul with a sense of peace.

We stop after what feels like hours, the moon having passed behind a thick cloud. A small, concealed camp remains tucked in the corner of the forest, concealed mostly by a giant fallen, rotting log. Draigh leads the way, leaping over it with ease. Sanaa next, then Killian, pausing at the top to offer me a hand.

I roll my eyes, ignoring his hand and launching myself over the log, landing on two feet.

Killian raises a brow. "Nice."

"Not all humans are bumbling idiots, you know."

He seems to think it over as he jumps from the log and lands beside me. "And not all shifters are blood-thirsty monsters," he says. He strolls past me without waiting for a response.

The camp before us can't have been here long. I scan the surroundings. One horse sleeping with its head slanted, scattered weapons across the ground. I mentally count up the soldiers, both men and women. There are no more than 10 of them. Significantly less than the amount of shifters that were in the camp on the coast.

"This way," Sanaa orders us as she marches through the makeshift camp. As she passes, soldiers rise and watch her with profound respect. Killian nods at each of them as he passes. When their eyes cast to me, they just stare. I cannot read their expressions.

Sanaa settles around the corner on an overturned log, resting her hands on her knees. Two of her braids have loosened from the loop they were tied in, hanging around the sides of her face.

Killian kneels down to her height.

"What happened, Sanaa?" Killian asks immediately. "Where is everyone?"

"Camp was attacked," she says. "Aelin caught word of your executions in Veymaw. I sent three units to intervene. They never made it back to camp. Instead, Ereon's army came."

"Someone talked."

She nods, expression darkening. "Not everyone has the strength to withstand torture."

A shudder crawls down my spine. Trina always believed the same. No matter how tough you believed yourself to be, even the strongest of soldiers could crack under immense torture. That's why we were always equipped with nanium on missions. It would kill us before the first kick.

"We got the boy," Sanaa says, anticipating my question before I can ask. "And Cadence."

"Where are they?"