PROMISE

CHAPTER 3

Daylight's dregs had mostly drained from the sky when the trees thinned enough for Hain to sight Echo. He knelt at the wood's edge, goosebumps puckering over his sweat-damp skin as a breeze lapped at his neck. The place didn't feel like home. It never had, nor would it likely ever. But he couldn't deny the relief he felt at the sight of the stone walls rising like cliffs around the haven. His nerves felt raw after his journey through the Hoh Wood. During the trip his eyes had turned traitor, morphing light and shadow into Vrai soldiers, while his ears had made whispers from the hissing wind and rustling leaves.

Hain hoisted the twin packs on his shoulders and studied the haven for a beat. Stars shone overhead, their brightness muted by a full moon pinned to the night sky. Moonlight splashed down from the heavens, washing the scrubland with silver until the ferns and grass looked wrought from precious metal. The rumor mill would have begun by now as his tutors logged his extended absence, and his uncle's wrath would be harsh if those rumors found his ears. He knew he ought to get back to Echo.

Instead, Hain put the haven to his left and turned south toward the Viajero camp, keeping to the scrubland pushing the wood's edge. After what he'd seen that day, Hain longed for the comfort of the camp. For the cry of fiddles around the campfires, their warbling voices somehow both mournful and joyful all at once. For the eye-watering spice of roasting chilis in the air. For the sounds of work, and play, and life–so much life that Hain half-expected the ground to cave in under its weight.

And for the smiles, Hain thought, feeling his own grin bloom over his lips. Their smiles blessed by the tribe's matriarch, La Doña.

It didn't matter that Hain hadn't known his Viajero mother before she'd died, or that she'd been part of an altogether different Viajero tribe, or even that his parents hadn't been wed when they'd had him. Viajeros had no word for bastard. Only for blood. For family. And La Doña had made him almost such when she'd welcomed him to the camp.

Hain picked up his pace, and a chorus of throaty growls cursed at him from the bag over his shoulder.

"I'd appreciate if you wouldn't take that tone," Hain said. "Especially seeing as I saved your lives."

The cats hissed back.

"I'm sure you're all very intimidating when you're not stuffed in a sack," Hain said. "But the good news is that you'll be out of it soon. In fact, I can see the sentry's fire." Hain raised a hand into the air. "Hail, Viajero!"

His voice echoed from the landscape in that long moment before someone stood from beside the campfire. Hain could tell it was a man. Lean and tall, his body stained gold by the firelight. The sentry lifted an arm into the air.

"Who comes skulking into our camp this late?" the figure's accented voice came back over the scrubland. "Surely someone up to no good."

"I've been up to all kinds of good," Hain called back. "In fact, I think you'd be shocked if you knew all the good, uh, stuff I've been up to."

Rico moved from the fire, his long legs gobbling up the distance between them, and Hain sized him up as he came. The man was tall–impossibly tall, Hain thought–and lithe as a sapling's trunk. His gangly limbs swept in graceful swings when he moved, as though the act of walking were more a dance than a way to get from one place to the next. Moonlight glinted from the scrap metal woven into the fabric of his shirt, and the nest of faith sigils slung around his neck clattered against the shiny bits of armor with every step. More metal gleamed from the tips of his narrow, pointed boots and from the needly estoque slung low on one hip. A wide brimmed hat sat atop his head, one side pinned to the cap over his ear, the other bearing a single, billowy black feather.